In your review of the exhibition of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s collection at the Royal Academy of Art (”More Than Just a Pretty Face,” September 20, 2003), you are somewhat dismissive of the Pre-Raphaelites’ aims, but you seem to appreciate the subsequent success of their works. Without going into the value of their art, which I find decadent and mawkish together with Roger Fry, I must say that their aims strike me as formidable even today. Founded in the revolutionary turmoil of 1848, the Pre-Raphaelites loathed the art of the Renaissance, and especially that of Raphael, because it led art away from its spiritual origins. At least at the onset, they aspired to the quiet work of anonymous artists who preceded the Renaissance. Although the Pre-Raphaelites failed to break the spell of the Renaissance, and quite miserably so in my view, the aim is still admirable. And ever more pressing. What other path is left to contemporary art?