by Philip Gordos BBC News Online

Ford Maddox Brown's pastoral scenes feature in the show

An exhibition at Tate Britain looks at a revolutionary approach to landscape painting introduced to Britain in the 1850s by a group of young artists known as the Pre-Raphaelites.

The great Italian Renaissance artist Raphael was prevalent at the start of the 16th Century while the Pre-Raphaelites hit town some 350 years later.

The key distinction here is subject matter rather than chronology.

Whereas Raphael was responsible for magnificent works of art conjured up by his own imagination, the Pre-Raphaelites held a deep fascination for all things natural, fundamentally altering English approaches to landscape painting in the 1850s.

But this exhibition is far from just a collection of countryside images, devoid of any human form or man-made object.

The exhibition should get visitors in the mood for spring

Take John Everett Millais' Ophelia or Brown's The Pretty Baa-Lambs for example, where the central figure or figures light up the canvas.

However, nature is a recurring theme and fulfils more than just a mere supporting role, as John Brett's Etna from the Heights of Taormina wonderfully demonstrates.

There is a string of stunning paintings in this exhibition, which consists of 150 works from the very famous to the relatively unknown.

And there is a good mixture of settings, too, from the waterfalls and rugged mountains of Scotland to the sandy expanses of Egypt.

Pay particular attention to Brett's Florence from Bellosguardo, where the city spreads out before you like a map, and the British Channel seen from the Dorsetshire Cliffs, which illuminates the last of the six sections and is a fitting way to bring the exhibition to a close.

Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature is at the Linbury Galleries, Tate Britain, London until 3 May.