It was in The Germ (1850) the first British magazine with an aesthetic manifesto that the
interart theories of the Pre-Raphaelites took shape. The thirteen young contributors advocated
an ethical approach to art while at the same time acknowledging self-referentiality and
meta-discoursivity. They defined the specificity of each mode of artistic expression while
exploring the dynamic between word and image moving from realism towards Symbolism and even
anticipating Surrealism. The Aesthetes and Decadents were fascinated the Modernists felt
challenged. Later in the twentieth century a succession of reappraisals transformed the
Pre-Raphaelites into a well-marketed group of eccentrics but neglected the complexity of their
cross-cultural verbal visual art. This study aims to explain why claims about the autonomy and
interrelatedness of the arts expressed in the form of a provocative monthly journal proved so
influential as to be a source of inspiration for the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine The Century
Guild Hobby Horse The Yellow Book The Savoy and even for Modernist periodicals. Often
regarded as a juvenile venture The Germ was in fact a laboratory for expressive forms themes
and ideas that had an enormous impact on the history of British culture.
