Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown ( born April 16, 1821 in Calais, † October 11, 1893 in London) was an English painter from the circle of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Life

Ford Madox Brown arrived in Calais, the son of a ship's chandler to the world. Brown first studied one semester at the Academy of Bruges under Albert Gregorius and went in 1836 to Ghent. There Pieter Van Hanselaere was his teacher for two years and Brown presented at the local salon. 1838 convinced him the reputation of Gustave Wappers to Antwerp to draw, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts along with Jozef Van Lerius ( 1823-76 ), Karel Verlat ( 1824-90 ) and Godefridus Guffens ( 1823-1901 ). Here Brown was impressed by the paintings of the painter of the 17th century.

From 1840 he lived in Paris and studied at the Louvre, the pictures of Velázquez and Rembrandt as well as the works of Delacroix. In 1845 he took the route via Basel to travel to Italy and lived in Milan, Florence and Rome, where he met the painter Friedrich Overbeck and Peter Cornelius from among the Nazarenes, whose artistic ambition, and the painting of the Middle Ages to orient the Renaissance, it also impressed as before the painting by Holbein in Basel.

In 1846, Ford Madox Brown settled in London. Brown met Dante Gabriel Rossetti in March 1848 and has taught it for a while in the painting. However, this was met with Rossetti on deaf ears. From this time probably dated a drawing showing the two anfertigten jointly by Jane Burden. He introduced 1849-1853 his paintings, which are also particularly influenced artistic addition Rosetti Frederick Sandys ( 1829-1904 ), together with those of the Pre-Raphaelites. Brown could have been a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but preferred to continue to operate independently of the movement. Publication of the Brotherhood, The Germ, he added text and an illustration.

In 1861 he was one of the founding members of the firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company by William Morris, for which he, as Edward Burne -Jones ( 1833-1898 ) took over his post until 1875, stained glass windows, tiles, and furniture designing. 1878 Brown was awarded the contract, the Manchester Town Hall with six, later extended to twelve, large frescoes equip the history of the city. This large companies claiming him henceforth comprehensively in his Künstlerdasein.In the point of view of his contemporaries was assigned to Ford Madox Brown, the realist movement in which of Dowsen, Muther, Greene & Hillier end of the 19th century issued History of Modern Painting, he is called "the English Adolph Menzel ", respectively.

In 1844, Brown had married his cousin Elizabeth Bromley, two years later, in 1846, died, and the daughter Lucy Madox Brown left. Emma Hill came as a model to him. She was an uneducated a servant and Brown brought her writing and reading. 1850 their daughter Catherine Emily was born. In his painting " The Pretty Baa - Lambs ," the two shows together. They eventually married on 5 April 1853. The first son, Oliver, was born in 1855 and a second son, Arthur followed, in 1856. 1857 Arthur died tragically of meningitis. His daughter Cathy was also a painter and married to music critic Dr. Franz Hueffer. Oliver called Nolly was a talented poet and artist and who exhibited his work and published. 1874 Oliver rod suddenly of blood poisoning. Then Brown was a depression and withdrew. He built a shrine for Oliver at his home. A grandson of Ford Madox Brown, Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) was a famous writer, and one of his great-grandson was the later British Home Secretary Frank Soskice. Brown's diary, performed from 1847 to 1850 and from 1854 to 1858, provides a rare glimpse into the life of a painter in the 19th century.

Works

Ford Madox Brown's painting shows a realistic and confident style, his work includes both large-sized executed historical subjects and themes of modern life and its contemporary social concerns. 1865 Brown presented his works in London in a synopsis of; they were consistently bought by English manufacturers and merchants.

Important are his painting The Last of England and work, which he began in 1852 at the same time, however, after several interruptions until 1855 and 1865 ended. The title The Last of England refers to the wave of emigration to Australia; the models for the immigrant family were the painter himself, his wife Emma and their two children. The work was acquired in 1891 by the Museum of Fine Arts in Birmingham. Works, completed in 1865, is considered the first modern representation of workers by Courbet's painting The Stone Breakers (1849 ). It belongs to the inventory of the Manchester Art Gallery.

Social Commitment

Its social responsibility is reflected both in his life and his work. It was said of him that he refused to luxury and privilege. End of the 1850s there were signs lessons at college workers. In 1859, he taught with his wife Emma, a soup kitchen. He was also concerned about the famine in the cotton mill in Lancashire in 1862, which could no longer export their goods due to the Civil War in America, and donated money to support the workers. In 1866 he set up office for the unemployed in Manchester, to help them in finding employment. He had read the book "Past and Present " by Thomas Carlyle.

Although agnostic, he attended services and used bible quotes for his work. At Oxford he met John Everett Millais ' research to the translation of the Bible Wycliffe and lived with him. This painting was purchased by also by the pious Thomas Combe.

His wife Emma died in 1890. Ford Madox Brown died from gout on October 6, 1893 and was buried in the cemetery of St Pancras and Islington in London.