Ford Madox Brown | British painter | Britannica.com Ford Madox Brown Ford Madox Brown, (born April 16, 1821, Calais , France —died October 6, 1893, London , England ), English painter whose work is associated with that of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood , although he was never a member. Pretty Baa-Lambs, oil on panel by Ford Madox Brown, 1851–59; in … Fine Art Images/Heritage-Images Brown studied art from 1837 to 1839 in Bruges and Antwerp , Belgium. His early work is characterized by sombre colour and dramatic feeling suited to the Byronic subjects that he painted in Paris during 1840–43, such as Manfred on the Jungfrau (c. 1840) and Parisina’s Sleep (1842). Already concerned with the accurate representation of natural phenomena, he drew from corpses in University College Hospital in London when painting his Prisoner of Chillon (1843).

During a visit to Italy in 1845, he met Peter von Cornelius , a member of the former Lukasbund, or Nazarenes . This meeting undoubtedly influenced both Brown’s palette and his style. His interest in brilliant, clear colour and neomedievalism first appears in Wyclif Reading His Translation of the Scriptures to John of Gaunt (1847). In 1848 Brown briefly accepted Dante Gabriel Rossetti as a pupil, and in 1850 Brown contributed to the Pre-Raphaelites’ magazine, Germ. Like William Holman Hunt , Brown painted in the open air to obtain naturalistic accuracy. His most famous picture, Work (1852–63), which can be seen as a Victorian social document, was first exhibited at a retrospective exhibition held in London (1865), for which he wrote the catalog. He also worked as a book illustrator with William Morris ; produced stained glass, at, among other sites, St.

Oswald’s, Durham (1864–65); and between 1879 and 1893 completed a series of 12 murals for the Manchester town hall, depicting scenes from the city’s history. The Irish Girl, oil on canvas laid on board by Ford Madox Brown, 1860; … Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund (B1989.11) Learn More in these related articles: Ford Madox Brown Ford Madox Brown Location of death: London, England Cause of death: Stroke Remains: Buried, St. Pancras Cemetery, London, England Gender: Male Nationality: England Executive summary: English historical painter English painter, born at Calais on the 16th of April 1821. His father was Ford Brown, a retired purser in the navy; his mother, Caroline Madox, of an old Kentish family. His paternal grandfather was Dr. John Brown, who established the Brunonian Theory of Medicine. Ford Madox Brown was the only child of his parents, save for a daughter who died young.

In childhood he was shifted about a good deal between France and England; and having shown from the age of six or seven a turn for drawing he was taken, when fourteen years old, and with meagre acquirements in the way of general tuition, to Bruges, and placed under the instruction of Gregorius, a pupil of David. His principal instructor, however, from about 1837, was Baron Wappers, of Antwerp, then regarded as a great light of the Belgian school. From him the youth learned the technique not only of oil painting but of various other branches of art. At a very early age Brown attained a remarkable degree of force in drawing and painting, as attested by an extant oil-portrait of his father, done at an age not exceeding fifteen. His first composition, towards 1836, represented a blind beggar and his child; his first exhibited work, 1837, was "Job on the Ash-heap"; the first exhibited work in London (at the Royal Academy, 1840), "The Giaours Confession", from Lord Byron 's poem.

Both his parents died before 1840, leaving to the young painter a moderate competence, which soon was materially reduced. In 1840 Brown completed a large picture, "The Execution of Mary, queen of Scots", strong in dramatic effect and in handling, with rather sombre color; from this time forth he must be regarded as a proficient artist, independent in his point of view and strenuous in execution. He contributed to the cartoon competitions, 1844 and 1845, for the Houses of Parliament -- "Adam and Eve after the Fall", "The Body of Harold brought to William the Conqueror", and "The Spirit of Justice." These highly remarkable cartoons passed not wholly unobserved, but not one of them obtained a prize. The years 1840-45 were passed in Paris, London and Rome; towards the middle of 1846 Brown settled permanently in London. In 1841 he had married his cousin Elizabeth Bromley, who died of consumption in 1846, leaving a daughter, Lucy, who in 1874 became the wife of William M. Rossetti.

Not long after being left a widower, Brown took a second wife, Emma Hill, who figures in many of his pictures. She had two children who grew up: Catherine, who married Dr. Franz Hueffer, the musical scholar and critic, and Oliver, who died in 1874 in his twentieth year. All three children showed considerable ability in painting, and Oliver in romance as well. The second Mrs. Brown died in 1890. The most marked distinction of Brown as an artist may be defined as vigorous invention of historic or dramatic scenes, carried out with a great regard to individuality in the personages, expressions and accessories of incident and detail, not excluding the familiar, the peculiar and the semi-grotesque, when these seem to subserve the general intent. Owing, however, to his association with artists of the so-called "pre-Raphaelite" movement (which began late in 1848), and especially with Dante Gabriel Rossetti , who received some training in his studio in the spring of that year, he has been regarded sometimes as the precursor or initiator of this movement, and sometimes as a direct cooperator in it.

His claim to be regarded as a precursor or initiator is not strong; though it is true that even before 1841 he had pondered the theory (not then much in vogue) that a picture ought to present the veritable light and shade proper to some one moment in the day, and his "Manfred on the Jungfrau" (1841) exemplifies this principle to some extent; it reappears in his very large picture of "Chaucer at the Court of Edward III" (now in the public gallery of Sydney, Australia), which, although projected in 1845, was not brought to completion until 1851. As to becoming a direct cooperator in the pre-Raphaelite movement, he did not join the "Brotherhood", though it would have been open to him to do so; but for some years his works exhibited a marked influence derived from the movement, not on the whole to their clear advantage.

The principal pictures of this class are: "The Pretty Baa-lambs"; "Work" (a street scene at Hampstead); and "The Last of England" (an emigration subject, one of his most excellent achievements): dating between 1851 and 1863. "Christ Washing Peter's Feet" (now in the National Gallery of British Art) comes within the same range of dates, and is a masterly work; here the pre-Raphaelite influence is less manifest. Altogether it may be averred that the conception and introduction of the pre-Raphaelite scheme, such as it appeared to the public eye in 1849 and 1850, belong to Millais, Holman Hunt and Rossetti, rather than to Brown.

Other leading pictures by Brown are the following: "Cordelia at the Bedside of Lear"; "Shakespeare"; "Jacob and Joseph's Coat"; "Elijah and the Widow's Son"; "Cordelia's Portion"; "The Entombment"; "Romeo and Juliet" (the parting on the balcony); "Don Juan and Haidee"; "Cromwell on his Farm"; "Cromwell, Protector of the Vaudois" -- covering the period from 1849 to 1877. "Sardanapalus and Myrrha", begun within the same period, was finished later. He produced, moreover, a great number of excellent cartoons for stained glass, being up to 1874 a member of the firm of decorative art, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. (of which William Morris was a principal.) He also executed, in colors or in crayons, various portraits, including his own.

From 1878 he was almost engrossed by work which he undertook for the town hall of Manchester, and which entailed his living for some few years in that city -- twelve large wall paintings, some of them done in a modified form of the Gambier-Parry process, and others in oils on canvas applied to the wall surface. They present a compendium of the history of Manchester and its district, from the building of the Roman camp at Mancunium to the experimental work of John Dalton in elaborating the atomic theory. This is an extremely fine series, though with some diversity of individual merit in the paintings, and is certainly the chief representative, in the United Kingdom, of any such form of artistic effort -- if we leave out of count the works (by various painters) in the Houses of Parliament. Madox Brown was never a popular or highly remunerated artist. Up to near middle age he went through trying straits in money matters; afterwards his circumstances improved, but he was not really well off at any time. In youth he followed the usual course as an exhibiting painter, but after some mortifications and heart-burnings he did little in this way after 1852.

He held, however, in 1865, an exhibition of his own then numerous paintings and designs. He also delivered a few lectures on fine art from time to time. From 1868 he suffered from gout; and this led to an attack of apoplexy, from which he died in London on the 6th of October 1893. He was a man of upright, independent and honorable character, of warm affections, a steady and self-sacrificing friend; but he took offense rather readily, and viewed various persons and institutions with a degree of suspicion which may be pronounced excessive. He felt interest in many questions outside the range of his art, and, being a good and varied talker, had often something apposite and suggestive to say about them. On more than one occasion he exerted himself very zealously for the benefit of the working classes. In politics he was a consistent Democrat, and on religious questions an Agnostic. Father: (ship's purser) Wife: Elisabeth Bromley (m. 3-Apr-1841 Meopham) Wife: Emma Hill (m.

5-Apr-1853 London) Son: Oliver Madox (novelist, watercolorist, b. 1855, d. 1874) Ford's Biography - The Ford Madox Ford Society Ford's Biography Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939): Biography Introduction The writer now known as Ford Madox Ford was a prolific novelist, poet, critic, editor, and reminiscer. He is one of the most intriguing, versatile, and often still misunderstood of the great Modernist writers. He was brought up in London, the grandson of Ford Madox Brown, the painter closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. At the turn of the century he lived on the Romney Marsh, befriending Henry James and Stephen Crane, and beginning a ten-year collaboration with Joseph Conrad. In the years before the First World War he moved to London, where he founded the English Review, bringing together many of the best established writers of the day – James, Thomas Hardy, Conrad, H. G. Wells, and Arnold Bennett – with his new discoveries, many of whom would help redefine modern literature, such as Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, and D. H. Lawrence.

His major work of the Edwardian period includes the Fifth Queen trilogy of historical novels about Henry VIII and Katharine Howard (1906-08); the trilogy of impressionist books about England and the English (1905-07) and the novels A Call (1910) and – Ford’s best-known and most highly-regarded novel – The Good Soldier (1915). During the war he wrote propaganda; but in 1915 enlisted, serving in France in 1916-17 during the Battle of the Somme and at the Ypres Salient. He was invalided back to Britain in 1917, remaining in the army and giving lectures. After a spell recuperating in the Sussex countryside after the war, Ford lived mostly in France during the 1920s, first in Provence, then in Paris. He published his other major fictional work, the series of four novels known as Parade’s End, between 1924 and 1928. These were particularly well-received in America, where Ford spent much of his time from the later 1920s to his death in 1939.

Birth and Childhood Ford was born on 17 December 1873 at 5 Fair Lawn Villas, Merton, Surrey, in England. He was the first of three children of the German émigré, Francis Hueffer (1845-89), a musicologist and author, and Catherine (1850-1927), painter, daughter of Ford Madox Brown, and his second wife Matilda (‘Emma’) Hill. He was christened Ford Hermann Hueffer. His father (Franz Hüffer before he Anglicized his name) had emigrated to England in 1869, and later became music critic for the Times. Ford considered becoming a composer -- a hoard of song manuscripts has survived -- but soon settled on a literary career, publishing his first book, a fairy story, The Brown Owl (1891) at the prodigious age of seventeen. His father died prematurely in 1889, and Ford and his brother Oliver went to live with their grandfather at 1 St Edmund's Terrace, Regent's Park. Their sister, Juliet, went to their aunt, Madox Brown’s other daughter Lucy, who was married to W. M.

Rossetti, the brother of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti. Both the boys adored Madox Brown, and introduced a 'Madox' into their own names. Ford would call himself 'Ford Madox Hueffer' until he changed his name by deed poll in 1919 to 'Ford Madox Ford'. Ford and Oliver were sent to an advanced primary school in Kent, then to University College School (in Gower Street, London). They never went to university; but moved through important bohemian, musical, and intellectual circles. Ford later recalled being overwhelmed as a child by the 'Middle Victorian, tumultuously bearded Great' (Mightier Than the Sword, p. 264), such as Ruskin, Carlyle, and Holman Hunt. One of his most vivid childhood memories was of offering Turgenev a chair. Ford's Rossetti cousins were precocious anarchists. Through them, he met Russian political émigrés such as Prince Kropotkin.

Dr Richard Garnett, Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum, was a neighbour; his daughter Olive became a close friend; also his son Edward Garnett, later an influential critic and publisher's reader, who married Constance, famous for her Russian translations. Marriage, Collaboration with Conrad, and Early Successes In 1894 Ford eloped with his school-girlfriend Elsie Martindale, the daughter of Dr William Martindale, a prominent analytical chemist, who opposed her marrying someone with such unreliable financial prospects. Ford and Elsie married in Gloucester on 17 May 1894. They left London, and settled in Bonnington, on the Romney Marsh; in 1901 they moved to the Bungalow, Winchelsea. They had two daughters, Christina (1897-1984) and Katharine (1900-78). Ford befriended the authors living nearby: Henry James, Stephen Crane, and H. G. Wells.

It was also during this period that he met the sceptical Tory mathematician, Arthur Marwood (1868-1916), on whom he was to base many fictional characters – especially Christopher Tietjens, the protagonist of Parade’s End. In 1898 Edward Garnett had introduced Ford to Joseph Conrad -- the writer who was to have the deepest influence on him. They decided to collaborate on a novel about pirates. It was the beginning of a decade of apprenticeship, intimacy and frustration. When Romance was published in 1903, after five years of intermittent collaboration, its lukewarm reception was deeply disappointing. Ford’s marriage was under strain -- he is thought to have had an affair with his sister-in-law, Mary Martindale – and he had a severe agoraphobic breakdown in 1904. He was sent to Germany, for a 'nerve cure' near some of his German family – an experience which provided the setting for much of The Good Soldier. After his return to England, Ford began at last to find success. He spent more time in London, and his study The Soul of London (1905) was 'boomed' in the papers.

This was followed by two other volumes making up a trilogy about England and the English (1907). At the same time he wrote a trilogy of historical romances about Henry VIII's wife Katharine Howard: The Fifth Queen (1906); Privy Seal (1907) and The Fifth Queen Crowned(1908). He was to define himself (with James, Crane, and Conrad) as an 'impressionist' writer; which for him entailed not only a psychological emphasis on the processes of perception, but a provocative freedom with fact reminiscent of the Decadent movement. Violet Hunt, The English Review, and The Good Soldier As he became increasingly prominent in London literary life, and further estranged from his wife, he moved to a flat at 84, Holland Park Avenue.

From there he founded and edited the English Review, and consolidated the classic canon of early modernist literature virtually singe-handed, earning himself the reputation of one of the century's greatest literary editors: He was to remain a lifelong friend of Ezra Pound, recently arrived in London, who thought him the best critic in England, and became one of his fiercest champions, arguing that modernistvers libre was enabled by Ford's insistence that poetry should be as well written as prose. The Review lost money, however, and Ford was ousted as editor (though he continued to contribute) after fourteen monthly issues. Ford became involved with the novelist and socialite Violet Hunt (1862-1942), and went to live fairly openly with her at her house in Kensington, South Lodge, on Campden Hill Road. Though he had been received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1892, he was rarely a practising Catholic, and attempted to divorce his wife. When she refused, Ford and Hunt conceived the dubious idea of his going to live in Germany and becoming a German citizen in order to secure a divorce there. But Ford’s application for German citizenship was turned down, and the divorce probably never happened. Nevertheless, he and Hunt claimed it had.

When she was reported in the press as being 'Mrs Ford Madox Hueffer', Elsie Hueffer sued for libel, and won. The case was a society scandal from which Ford's reputation took much of the next century to recover. The strain of the episode took its toll on Ford and his relationship with Hunt, but unleashed some of his best writing, especially in The Good Soldier. He began dictating it to Brigit Patmore, with whom he had become infatuated. The novel is a masterpiece of modernist technique, using an unreliable narrator to piece together a complex plot of sexual intrigue and betrayal through elaborate time-shifts. The First World War Ford joined the army in 1915, serving as an officer in the Welch Regiment. It was an escape from a life that had become intolerable, and he appears to have wanted to die. When he was sent to the Somme in July 1916, only two weeks into the bloodiest battle in British military history, he nearly did die: a shell explosion concussed him, and he lost his memory for three weeks, forgetting even his own name for a few days. He was sent back to the front, this time in the Ypres Salient.

But he became ill again, suffering from pneumonia, probably exacerbated by exposure to poison gas. His wartime experiences went into Parade's End , now increasingly seen as one of the greatest literary works about the First World War, and by some critics as the greatest English war fiction, and one of the greatest English novels. Ford was sent to convalesce in the South of France, but when he returned to the front he had to be invalided home. He served for the rest of the war mostly in the North of England, attached to the Staff and lecturing troops. While staying with Violet Hunt on leave he had met Esther (‘Stella’) Bowen (1893-1947), a young Australian painter who had come to London to study at the Westminster School of Art under Sickert. They started corresponding, and soon became lovers. Stella Bowen, France, and Parade’s End When Ford was demobilised in 1919 he and Stella set up house together, in a picturesque Sussex cottage auspiciously called Red Ford, in Hurston, Pulborough. He wanted to get back to the land, and start a new life, becoming a self-sufficient farmer. His bricolage was ramshackle, and his pigs died.

But the experiment worked. He regenerated himself, metamorphosing into 'Ford Madox Ford', and beginning to write once more. He needed to change his name now that he had two ex-partners fighting for the right to be 'Mrs Hueffer'. Ford and Bowen moved to a larger and more comfortable cottage before their daughter, Esther Julia (‘Julie’) (1920-87), was born. But they found the damp and mud of Sussex winters oppressive. The poet Harold Monro offered them his house on Cap Ferrat in 1922. Ford wrote a wry fantasy poem, Mister Bosphorus and the Muses, dramatising his need to turn from a cold and philistine North to the Latin-based civilisation of the Mediterranean. It was his credo, but also a farewell to England. Ford began Some Do Not . . ., the first volume ofParade's End, at Cap Ferrat, continuing it as they travelled North through France during the summer, finishing it in Paris, where Ford was to be based through the rest of the 1920s.

Parade's End is more expansive than The Good Soldier, following its intelligent protagonist, Christopher Tietjens, through the traumatic changes in recent British society: Edwardian unrest, the war; post-war reconstruction. It is also another major work of European modernism, continuing Ford’s experiments with presentation: exploring mental multiplicity, time, memory, and ‘stream of consciousness’. Paris in the 1920s and the transatlantic review In 1923 Ford and Stella Bowen settled into a cottage in the Parisian artists' colony known as the Cité Fleurie at 65, Boulevard Arago. There he was to be once again at the centre of another literary revolution, and to act as uncle to the next generation of the Avant-Garde. With Pound's help, he founded the transatlantic review, and published James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and the young Ernest Hemingway, whom Ford took on as a sub-editor. One of his latest discoveries was Jean Rhys, with whom he had a brief affair.

When Conrad died in 1924, Ford wrote a memoir, Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance (1924), one of his most moving books, combining reminiscence and criticism. The third part, titled ‘It is above all to make you see . . .’, catalogues the principles and techniques that Conrad and Ford developed in their collaborative discussions, and has been seen by many as a milestone in the history of novel-criticism, and as an essential handbook for a writer of fiction. Biala, America, and Life-Writings As Parade's End began to appear, Ford found himself successful again, this time particularly in America. He made lecture tours there in the late 1920s, and took a flat in New York. He and Bowen separated in 1928. When he was back in Paris in May 1930, he met Janice Biala (originally Janice Tworkovski; 1903-2000), an American painter, with whom he spent the rest of his life. They never had money -- the Depression severely damaged his sales -- and he was rarely in good health.

Yet they managed to live their truly bohemian life travelling between New York, Paris, and Provence (especially at the Villa Paul, Cap Brun, Toulon), growing vegetables, encouraging writers with talent, and working tirelessly at their arts. He continued to write novels throughout the 1930s, becoming particularly preoccupied with the motif of the double. The Rash Act (1933) is the best of these. He also turned to autobiography, producing brilliant but partly fictionalised memoirs of his pre-war world -- Return to Yesterday (1931) -- and of his post-war life in Sussex and France -- It Was the Nightingale (1934). His writing rarely confined itself to narrow genres: in his last phase he fused history, reminiscence, cultural criticism, and travel-writing, into the charming books on Provence (1935), and on what he called the Great Trade Route (1937) -- his personal 'impression' of the process of civilisation.

His last published book was The March of Literature (1938), an immense comparative survey ‘From Confucius to Modern Times’, a vivid, idiosyncratic testament to his faith in literature as an international ‘republic’ of letters. Most days of his life Ford got up early, and wrote a thousand words or two. He produced nearly eighty books, some of which changed the course of modern literature. He died in Deauville, on 26 June 1939, and is buried there. Posthumous Reputation The younger writers and critics he befriended – Douglas Goldring, William Carlos Williams, Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon, Robert Lowell, John Crowe Ransom, Graham Greene – ensured his reputation as a writer’s writer. The American New Critical school valued his technique, especially in The Good Soldier (which was filmed by Granada Television in 1981, starring Jeremy Brett). Later criticism has also focused on Parade’s End (which was filmed by the BBC in 1964, starring Ronald Hines and Judi Dench) for its treatment of war, shell-shock and social change. Influential writers and critics who have championed Ford’s fiction include W. H.

Auden, Malcolm Bradbury, Anthony Burgess, Samuel Hynes, Frank Kermode, Colm Tóibín, A. S. Byatt and Julian Barnes. Biographies of Ford have been written by Goldring, Frank MacShane, Arthur Mizener, Alan Judd, and Max Saunders. Ford’s major novels have rarely been out of print, and Carcanet Press in Manchester has been bringing the best of his prolific other work back into print since the 1980s. The Ford Madox Ford Society was founded in 1997, numbering amongst its members Gore Vidal, Ruth Rendell, A. S. Byatt, Julian Barnes, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Bill Nighy, and Tom Stoppard, who has adapted Parade’s End for a new BBC television series. For further short biographical accounts of Ford, see Sara Haslam’s entries in The Literary Encyclopedia ( ) and also The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, vol. 1, Twentieth-Century British and Irish Fiction (2010), ed. Brian W. Shaffer et al., pp. 132-36.

Max Saunders static test Resources Ford Madox Brown interactive Ford Madox Brown's painting Work, is brought to life in this interactive aimed at KS2 pupils. Please note that in order to use the interactive, you will need to have Flash 8 or above installed. As the interactive is Flash based it won't play on iOS devices like iPads and iPhones. Teachers' guide To make best use of this interactive, there is an extensive teachers' guide containing worksheets, activity ideas and background information about Ford Madox Brown's Work. The ' Teachers' Guide to using the Work Interactive ' can be downloaded in PDF format here. Interactive sections Introduction - this offers an audio-visual introduction to the site and takes you on a journey from the present back to Victorian times. Download Introduction notes here. Meet the people - this highlights six characters from the painting who literally come to life out of the painting as actors in video pieces. Download Meet the people notes and a glossary here. Investigate the painting - here, pupils are encouraged to look really closely at the painting and make discoveries about items within it by following a series of clues. Download Investigate the painting notes here.

Explore the objects - this section looks at the different responses people have to objects and their meanings, encouraging pupils to empathise with different characters. Download Explore the objects notes here. Take the quiz - this takes the form of audio clips and facts about different characters with a multiple choice quiz and scoreboard. Download Take the quiz notes here. Background to the painting Find out more about the life and times of Ford Madox Brown and why he painted Work. Early years Ford Madox Brown was born to British parents, Ford Brown (d.1842) and Caroline Madox (d.1839), on 16 April 1821 in Calais, France. His father had retired after the Napoleonic wars, having been a ship’s purser. Ford Madox Brown spent much of his youth in France and Belgium, and he also visited England. The family was not wealthy, and because of the amount of travelling between countries, Brown’s early education was erratic, although he was exposed to many artistic influences. He trained to be an artist at the academies of Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp between 1835 and 1839, where he enjoyed studying European painting in the museums.

He was particularly interested in portrait and history paintings, and this stayed with him throughout his career, culminating in historical murals commissioned for Manchester Town Hall in 1878. In 1840, Ford Madox Brown’s cousin, Elisabeth Bromley (1818 – 1846) joined him in Antwerp where she modelled for his painting The Execution. They fell in love and were married on 3 April 1841. Tragedy followed: Brown’s father died in 1842, shortly followed by the death of his first daughter. His wife Elisabeth died of consumption in 1846, leaving Brown to look after their baby daughter Emma Lucy Madox Brown, who was born in 1843. Emma later became an artist and married William Michael Rossetti in 1874. Images Studies for Work, Ford Madox Brown, 1855 © Tate, London 2006 Artistic influences Ford Madox Brown moved to Paris for three years in 1841. It was here that he first engaged with the Realist movement, whilst continuing with his penchant for historical painting.

In the following years, he entered several design competitions but was unsuccessful. During 1845-6, Brown went to Italy via Basel where he came across the work of Hans Holbein (1497/8 – 1543). He also came into contact with the Nazerenes, a group of German painters based in the city. The Nazarenes pre-dated the Pre-Raphaelites and the two movements had much in common. He returned to England in 1846, where he settled in London and became friends with several younger artists. Amongst these were Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1892) and William Holman Hunt (1827 – 1910) who were to form the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. Brown was also a friend of William Morris (1834 – 1896), the poet, artist, designer and socialist. Brown spent some time working for Morris designing stained glass, and it was Morris who inspired some of Brown’s socialist ideals. As an artist, Brown was considered to be anti-establishment.

Although he never joined the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, they were closely linked and he often exhibited with them. Image Detail from Work, Ford Madox Brown, 1852 – 1865 © Manchester Art Gallery Second marriage In 1848 Emma Hill became one of Ford Madox Brown’s models. She soon became his mistress, and they moved in together. At first, the relationship was kept secret due to the difference in their social standing: she was a domestic servant, illiterate and the daughter of a bricklayer. Emma was not always well: she suffered from fits and eventually became an alcoholic. In 1850, Emma had their first daughter, Catherine Emily. His painting, The Pretty Baa-Lambs shows them together. Brown taught Emma to read and write, and they were married on 5 April 1853. The couple had three children. Brown’s first son, Oliver, was born in 1855, and a second son, Arthur, was born in 1856. In 1857, their son Arthur died tragically of a brain infection. His daughter Cathy became an artist, and married the music scholar and critic, Dr.

Franz Hueffer. Oliver, known as Nolly, became a talented artist and poet, exhibiting and publishing his work. However, in 1874 Oliver died of blood poisoning. As a result of this, Brown became a depressive recluse, keeping a shrine to Oliver in his home. Brown was never financially successful, which led him to become even more despondent, stating, “Every unlucky man is my brother.” However, he did secure a number of patrons in the late 1850s, and exhibited his works in Liverpool. During the 1860s he moved towards an integrated approach to fine and decorative arts, and began to design furniture and stained glass. Image A Study of Arthur Madox Brown, age nine months, Ford Madox Brown, 1857 © Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool Social conscience Brown’s social conscience is evident throughout his life and work. He taught drawing at a working men’s college in the late 1850s, and also designed a badge for a boys’ orphanage. He was said to have disliked all obvious signs of luxury and privilege. In 1859, he established a soup kitchen with his wife Emma.

He was also concerned with the plight of those involved in the cotton famine that devastated trade in Lancashire during 1862, and he donated money to charities supporting the workers. In 1886, Brown went to a meeting in Manchester for unemployed people and tried to set up an office to help them find work. Despite being agnostic, Brown attended church and he often used Biblical quotations and imagery in his work. He agreed with the Reverend Maurice’s desires to improve the lives of the working classes. He also read works such as Past and Present by the socialist writer Thomas Carlyle. Death Emma died on 11 October 1890 and Ford Madox Brown died of gout on 6 October 1893. He was buried in the St Pancras and Islington cemetery in London. Image Detail from Work, Ford Madox Brown, 1852-1865 © Manchester Art Gallery The characters The characters in Work were deliberately chosen by Ford Madox Brown to represent different aspects of work in Victorian times. Many of the characters were described by the artist in his own introduction to the painting.

The navvy The word 'navvy' was first used to describe people who improved the waterways or 'navigations'. The word derives from 'navigators', the people who originally built the canals. Navvies built other types of navigation as well, such as railways, roads, and in this case, clean water or sewage pipes. Navvies had to be very strong as they would move up to 20 tons of earth in a day. They worked in groups and were very loyal to one another. Navvies were better paid than ordinary labourers, but they also faced greater risks. Accidents or even death were commonplace. Beer-drinking was also common among navvies. This was often due to a lack of clean water, but it gave cause for concern to some well-meaning middle class women who campaigned against the drinking of alcohol. People had differing views about navvies: some understood the necessity of their hard work, whilst others saw that they were often left suffering and forgotten. Ford Madox Brown was one who recognised the importance of the navvies’ manual labour.

He paints the navvies to reflect his his thoughts: the hero of this painting is the central navvy, in the prime of youth and beauty. There is also an Irish navvy (who would have emigrated to escape the potato famine), a selfish old bachelor navvy, a strong navvy who loves beer, and a young navvy who has been spared a life behind bars because he has been taught the virtues of hard work. Urchin baby This urchin baby was based on a sketch of Ford Madox Brown's own son, Arthur, who died whilst the painting was being created. The black ribbon worn by the baby is a symbol of mourning. In the painting, this would be mourning for the mother of the urchin children who is said to have died, although it also could represent Brown's own mourning for his son. Brown states in his diary: "drew poor little Arthur's head for the baby, and began painting it the day he was taken ill, and had to rub out what I had done." Reverend Maurice Reverend Frederick Dennison Maurice was born on 29 August 1805 and died on 1 April 1872.

He was an intelligent writer and teacher, and was a Church of England vicar. He believed that all people were equal under the eyes of God. Because of his religious views, he had a deep interest in the lives of the working classes. Ford Madox Brown describes Maurice as a 'brain worker' because he used his intelligence to think about how he could improve the lives of others. Maurice believed that through learning to read and write, people could better themselves. He opened a Working Men's College in London in 1854 so that the working classes could be educated. Admission to the college was one shilling, and all the teachers gave their services for free. Ford Madox Brown taught there alongside the artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Ruskin. It was whilst listening to Maurice and Ruskin speaking at the college that Brown decided to ask Maurice to sit for the painting. Temperance campaigner Many people, especially women, campaigned to try and stop the working classes and navvies from drinking alcohol. They saw it as unhealthy and believed that drinking beer led to drunkenness, violence and crime.

However, many of these women did not realise was that beer was the safest from of refreshment for the workers, as there was often no clean water supply. The campaigners' movement against drinking alcohol was called the 'Temperance Society'. Campaigners such as this one, gave out leaflets, tracts or pamphlets to tell people about 'the evils of alcohol'. Sometimes they tried to get people to sign a pledge stating that they would never drink alcohol again. MP This man was described by Ford Madox Brown as a Member of Parliament who is also a rich army colonel. of Parliament. His income was £15,000 per year, which was a vast sum of money at the time. Despite his wealth, Ford Madox Brown believed that he was 'honest and true-hearted'. In the painting the MP is riding into town with his young daughter, but their way has been blocked by the navvies digging up the road. Brown explains that this is rather like the MP himself: his mind is as blocked as the path. Subsequently, he is unable to hear the message of Reverend Maurice and Thomas Carlyle.

The painting is actually a portrait of one of Brown's friends, Robert Braithwaite Martineau, who sat for him on horseback. Chickweed seller The chickweed seller would have earned his keep by gathering plants and weeds from the countryside to sell in the town. These plants might be for wealthier people to feed their pet birds on, or for posies to give to loved ones. Another name used to describe people like this was 'Botany Ben'. The chickweed seller has collected groundsel, ivy, forget-me-nots and ferns. Ferns were often pressed and used in people's decorative collections. Work such as this was often regarded as 'the lowest of the low', but Ford Madox Brown regarded the chickweed seller as having a place next to the navvies: he has not been taught to work, but is keeping himself busy and earning money, rather than turning to crime. Orange seller This orange seller is being moved on by a policeman for resting her basket of oranges on a post, and in doing so, has dropped all her stock. Although some richer people may have found this amusing, Ford Madox Brown points out that it is not a joke as the oranges are her livelihood.

At the time, there were believed to be up to 30,000 people selling fruit on the streets. The work may have appealed to immigrant workers such as Irish escaping the potato famine, as it required no place of business and very little capital. Urchin girl Ford Madox Brown has invented a whole story around this family at the centre of his painting. The mother has died and the father neglects the children in favour of drinking beer. The urchin girl is dressed in hand-me-down clothes and has to act as a mother to her younger, potentially mischievous, siblings. There were thousands of poor children living on the streets at this time, or in squalid conditions. Many of these were orphans who had to look after their siblings. Street children, or urchins, may have worked to afford food. They sold flowers, matches or lace, or cleaned shoes and swept the streets for rich people. Some, however, would have turned to pick-pocketing to find money for their next meal. Many urchin children died at a very young age, often from diseases spread through dirty water, such as cholera.

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle was born on 4 December 1795 and died on 5 February 1881. He was an author, biographer and historian. One of the issues about which he wrote was work. In his book Past and Present, he contrasts the past (where work was a rewarding experience and the worker was well respected) with the present (where money is all that matters). He thought that the employers should concern themselves with the welfare of their employees, not simply paying them. He believed work was almost sacred, providing for the people engaged in it, whereas idleness brought despair. Two Perspectives on Work Download and read Ford Madox Brown's own catalogue entry for his painting Work. Compare this with an essay by one of the curators at Manchester Art Gallery to hear why Work is considered to be such an important painting. Image: Self-Portrait, Ford Madox Brown, 1877 Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop, 1943.185, © President and Fellows of Harvard College

Question: In which country was the painter Ford Madox Brown born?
Answer: France