fmb exhibition guide

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24 September–29 JanuaryManchester

Art Gallery

Exhibition

Guide

Ford

MadoxBrown Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer



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Ford Madox Brown:Pre-Raphaelite PioneerFord Madox Brown (1821–1893) was oneo the great originals o British art. He is bestknown or his Pre-Raphaelite masterpiecesThe Last of England and Work, vivid modern-lie subjects combining intense realism withoriginality o vision. Their social and politicalengagement is unique in Victorian art.

Brown had a ormative inuence onthe younger Pre-Raphaelites. Beorethe oundation o the Pre-RaphaeliteBrotherhood in 1848, he created a new styleinspired by the ‘primitive simplicity’ o theage beore Raphael. The members o the

Brotherhood took up his ideas and he in turnlearned rom them. Working in parallel, theyadopted the minute detail and vivid colourthat became hallmarks o Pre-Raphaelitism.

Brown’s art was anti-academic, rejectingeasy solutions, prettiness, and conventionalVictorian ormulae. His landscapes revealedunexpected beauty in ordinary places,and anticipated the open-air eects o theImpressionists. He depicted children withoutsentimentality and poor people withoutcondescension. He challenged traditional

ideas o artistic harmony, balance anddecorum: Brown’s use o clashing colours,conrontational poses, agitated movement,orceul expression and humour was aheado its time.

This is the frst comprehensive exhibition ohis work or over orty years. It demonstratesa consistent determination to see thingsanew: to breathe resh air, natural lightand realism into the traditional orms inwhich he had been trained. It also includesstained glass and urniture designed orWilliam Morris; and eatures works Brownpainted here in Manchester, where he livedor several years while painting the twelvemurals o Manchester’s history in the TownHall. The murals, his last great undertaking,

show that even in old age his wit andinventiveness were undiminished.

The Artist and his FamilyBrown’s background was unusual ora British artist. He was born in 1821 inCalais. His parents were English but lived inNorthern France. They sent him to study atthe art academies o Belgium. Ater a periodin Paris, he settled in London.

Brown was married twice. His frst wie, hiscousin Elisabeth, died only fve years ater

their marriage. His second wie Emma wasilliterate when they met and he arranged orher to have lessons in social and domesticskills. They married in secret several yearsater the birth o their frst child. Browncould not sell his paintings easily. He becamedepressed and reclusive and she developed adrink problem. The amily never had enoughmoney and during the 1850s they lived ahand-to-mouth existence.

Two o Brown’s children died in inancy, andanother, Oliver, died aged nineteen. Twodaughters, Lucy and Catherine, survived.Both o them became artists, althoughtheir careers were interrupted by marriage.At the beginning o his career Brown usedproessional models or his paintings, but he

also used his amily and his riends.Brown later became romantically involvedwith two younger women: Marie Spartali,one o his pupils, and then the reethinkingpoet and eminist Mathilde Blind. Theserelationships may have been purely platonic,but in any case Brown’s marriage to Emmasurvived. She was his avourite model andher beauty continued to inspire him until herdeath in 1890.

The Early PeriodBrown studied art at the Fine Art Academieso Bruges and Ghent, and fnally at theAntwerp Academy, one o the leadingart schools in Europe. The training there,modelled on the Académie des Beaux-Arts inParis, was much stricter and more thoroughthan anything available in Britain. It gavestudents skills in anatomy, composition andtechnique, enabling them to produce grandhistory paintings with elaborately groupedfgures on elevated themes rom history,literature or mythology. They were regardedas the ultimate test o the painter’s art.

Brown then spent a period in Paris where hebegan to question his academic education.

His ew surviving paintings o this periodare dark and dramatic, inuenced by FrenchRomantic artists such as Delacroix andDelaroche. But Brown’s work was quirkierand deliberately less polished than theirs,with exaggerated acial expressions and asatirical edge, stemming rom his admirationor Hogarth. His rough but poweruldrawing style, seen in the King Lear series,rejected the suave drawing technique taughtin the academies. Like the French Romantics,Brown avoured subjects rom Byron and

Self-portrait, c.1844/5, oil on board© Peter and Renate Nahum, London

Emma Hill (Study for the Last of England),1852, black chalk and wash© Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Head of a girl , c 1840,oil on canvas © Tate, London 2010

Manfred on the Jungfrau, 1841/1861,oil on canvas © Manchester City Galleries



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Shakespeare. In France this was a short-lived ashion, but Brown retained a lielongpassion or English history and literature.

In 1844 he entered the competition ormurals in the new Houses o Parliament,and moved to London, attracted by thepossibilities o work. He was not successul ingaining a commission.

The Change of Direction In 1845–6 Brown and his frst wie Elisabethtravelled across Europe to spend the winterin Rome or the sake o her health. Theytravelled via Basel, Milan and Florence andspent seven months in Rome. The journey,which was marked by personal sadness, as

Elisabeth died on the way back to England,had a radical eect on Brown’s art.

His style changed dramatically: it becamelighter in colour and more naturalistic, andhe experimented with natural lighting, tobring ‘air and sunshine’ to his historicalsubjects. Key inuences were ItalianRenaissance art, the Flemish paintings seenduring his student days in Belgium and thework o the Nazarene painters encounteredin Rome. In his portraits he ollowed theuncompromising realism o Holbein; andhe painted a number o mother and baby

subjects inspired by Italian and Flemishpaintings o the Madonna and Child. Despitethe oreign inuence on his style, he usedit to depict English subjects reecting hispatriotic views.

Brown’s new manner, ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ beorethe style had a name, inuenced the work o the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, oundeda ew years later. His art struck a chord withthe young Rossetti. They became lielongriends, and Rossetti introduced Brown toHolman Hunt and Millais. In 1848, Rossetti,Hunt and Millais ounded the Pre-RaphaeliteBrotherhood. Although Brown never becamea member, he was a ormative inuence onthe Pre-Raphaelite style and became one oits most important exponents.

The Draughtsman Brown’s art education in Belgium was basedon drawing. Students were trained to studythe ideal proportions o the human fgureby drawing rom plaster casts o classicalstatues. Only then were they allowed todraw rom live models. They were alsotaught to prepare or a painting thoroughlyby studying every detail, drawing each fgurenude and clothed, combining fgures intogroups and making studies o everything

including hands, eet, draperies andaccessories. Throughout his career, Browncontinued to make preparatory drawings orhis fgure subjects but not or his landscapes,which were painted directly onto the canvas.

The drawings in this section were notintended to be fnished works o art but theycan still be admired or their various qualitieso clarity, delicacy and energy.

The Landscape PainterBrown’s earliest landscapes, in thebackgrounds o his historical compositions,were copied rom small studies done out odoors, but the fnished paintings were donein the studio. The other Pre-Raphaelites,

inspired by Ruskin’s idea o ‘truth to nature’,painted their larger landscapes out odoors, but added the fgures later in thestudio. The turning point was The pretty baa-lambs. Here or the frst time Brownsat in the open air and painted fgures andlandscape together to get a more unifedand convincing appearance; he recordedthe dazzling eect o hot sunlight withunprecedented fdelity.

Then, in the 1850s while living in Hampsteadand Finchley, he painted a group o smalllandscapes o great originality, exploring

dierent times o day, dierent seasons anddierent types o scenery. He tried to paintexactly what he saw, eliminating landscapeconventions such as raming trees andaerial perspective. He also experimentedwith oval and circular shapes to get awayrom the usual rectangular ‘window’ormat. Just as original was the larger AnEnglish Autumn Afternoon, a truly modernlandscape painting: Pre-Raphaelite accuracywas applied to an ordinary, workaday scenewith fgures in modern dress, reerring tocontemporary ideas about landscape andleisure.

Although Brown was not trained inlandscape painting, and wrote in his diaryhow he struggled to capture the ever-

changing light and colours o nature,his landscapes are among his greatestachievements.

The Painter of Modern LifeBrown was one o the frst artists to paintserious contemporary subjects exploringsocial and political questions. Brown was notactive in politics but had strong views. Hewas bitterly critical o the aristocracy and theclass system, and was an admirer o ThomasCarlyle, who attacked Victorian materialism

The Seraph’s Watch (A Reminiscence of the Early Masters), 1847, oil on panel© Private collection Geneva

Head of Azo (Study for ‘Parisina’),1842, black chalk and ink wash© Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

The First Translation of the Bible into English 1847–8,1859–61, oil on canvas© Bradord Museums and Galleries (Clie Castle Museum)

‘The pretty baa-lambs’ , 1851–59, oil on panel© Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery



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and hypocrisy. His social conscience took practical orm in his help or the poor: hetaught at the Working Men’s College inLondon, and ounded a Labour Bureauto help the Manchester unemployed. Hewas also fercely patriotic, and joined thevolunteer Artists’ Ries Corps during theFrench invasion scare in the late 1850s.

Brown’s earliest modern lie subject wasWaiting, a modest domestic scene, begunin 1851. The ollowing year he had thefrst ideas or three paintings dealing withbroader contemporary ideas. These wereeventually realised as An English AutumnAfternoon, The Last of England, and Work.In these three paintings Brown re-inventedhistory and landscape painting or the

nineteenth century. Instead o elevatedgeneralities they presented an accumulationo everyday details; and instead o mythsor heroic deeds, the paintings embodiedsome o the great issues o the age: thetransormation o landscape and leisure inAn English Autumn Afternoon; emigrationin The Last of England ; and class and socialinequality in Work. Their vivid realism wasthe result o his painstaking observation odetail, his exploration o natural light, and hispenetrating eye, which rejected artifce andconvention.

The Characters in Work

Brown based the characters in the paintingon contemporary types, whom viewerswould have recognised rom their dressand attitude. He described them in anaccompanying pamphlet, oten expandingon what is shown in the painting byinventing histories or them and speculatingon their thoughts. He used his riends andamily as models or some, but paintedothers rom ordinary people that he met inthe streets and persuaded to model or him.

The ‘Brainworkers’The two men standing on the right othe painting are the key to the ideas thatinspired the painting. They are portraits oreal people: the writer Thomas Carlyle (thetaller o the two) and the clergyman Revd.Frederick Maurice.

Carlyle’s book Past and Present put orwardthe idea that work was the basis o a justsociety, and a means o individual salvation.The painting embodies these ideas, and theyare expressed in the quotations rom theBible written on the rame.

Maurice was a preacher, social reormerand educationalist. He was one o theounders o the Christian Socialist party, ando the Working Men’s College, a pioneer o

working class education. Brown taught artthere or a time and included a poster orthe College on the wall on the let o thepainting.

Brown described Carlyle and Maurice as‘brainworkers’ – in modern terms they arethe intellectuals, who, he wrote, ‘seemingto be idle, work and are the cause o well-ordained work and happiness in others.’

The NavviesThe navvies are the workmen digging upthe road. Brown placed them in the centreo the painting to underline the centralcontribution their physical work makes tosociety. Each navvy is engaged in a dierenttask – digging, sieving earth, carrying bricks,pausing or a drink, mixing cement – andeach is dierent in age, character andphysique. Brown wrote that the young navvyon the let ‘occupies the place o the hero’ othe group.

The Poor ChildrenIn the oreground, centrally placed, is agroup o poor children: ‘just such a groupo ragged dirty brats as anywhere get in theway and make a noise.’ The elder girl wearssecond-hand clothes that are too big orher. The baby wears black mourning ribbonsto indicate that its mother has died. Brown

wrote that the ather drank, and neglectedhis children.

The Chickweed SellerThe man carrying a basket o plants is sellingchickweed or groundsel, wild plants usedas ood or pet birds. He peers through hisbroken hat, decorated with ears o corn, atraditional symbol o madness. Street traderslike this were oten homeless vagrants orbeggars. Brown described him as ‘a raggedwretch who has never been taught to work.’

The Rich LadiesThe ladies exempliy the rich who do notneed to work. The older lady is engaged incharitable work. She holds a bundle o tracts(leaets) advocating temperance (giving upalcohol). She has given one to the navvy inthe trench but he is ignoring it: Brown’s textwryly suggests she might ‘be benefted byreceiving tracts containing navvies’ ideas!’In ront o her is a ashionably dressed lady‘whose only business in lie as yet is to dressand look beautiul or our beneft.’ Behindthem is a delivery-man carrying on his headthe green tray o a pastrycook, a symbol oauence.

The MP and his daughterThe man and the woman on horseback area wealthy Member o Parliament and his

The Last of England , 1852–55, oil on panel© Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Detail o Thomas Carlyle and Revd.Frederick Maurice in Work, 1852–63,oil on canvas© Manchester City Galleries

Detail o a navvy in Work, 1852–63,oil on canvas© Manchester City Galleries

Detail o the chickweed seller inWork, 1852–63, oil on canvas© Manchester City Galleries

Detail o the rich ladies inWork, 1852–63, oil on canvas© Manchester City Galleries



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daughter, soberly but expensively dressed.They are at the top o the composition,appropriate or the ruling class. But Brownhad little aith in politics and put the twofgures in shade, whereas the poor childrenand the navvies, to whom he was moresympathetic, are in ull sunlight.

The Beer SellerThe man in the ancy waistcoat carrying TheTimes is a beer-seller. He holds a green bottle-carrier. Brown painted him with his mouthopen because he is calling out his wares.‘That black eye was got probably doing thepolice o his master’s establishment in anencounter with some huge rufan whom hehas conquered in fght.’ wrote Brown.

The Irish Because o the potato amine in Ireland inthe 1840s, many Irish people emigratedto London to fnd work. Brown identifedthe navvy mixing up cement and the manleaning on the tree as Irish, and in ront ohim is a ‘young shoeless Irishman with hiswie’ eeding their baby. Sleeping on thebank are migrant labourers, possibly alsoIrish, in search o work. At the extreme rightedge is a policeman pushing an orange-seller. Most o the orange-sellers in Londonat this time were Irish girls.

The StorytellerNarrative painting gave Brown theopportunity to combine his love o literaturewith the skills o the history painter. ButBrown developed his storytelling techniquebeyond what he had been taught inBelgium. His narrative paintings arecharacterised by extremes o gesture andexpression: his riend Charles Rowley wrotethat ‘Some o Ford Madox Brown’s reallypowerul designs have passages so queer,so exaggerated and wanting in control, thateven his best riends “cannot abide them.”This vigorous originality is part o the priceone has to pay or his abounding and lastingpower.’

Brown was an avid reader and many o thestories he illustrated came rom his avouritewriters. Besides Shakespeare and Byron,Carlyle’s Lectures on Heroes was particularlyimportant or him. Brown’s own heroeswere radical and unconventional fgureswho stood outside society: Cordelia, Lear,Manred, the Prisoner o Chillon. Browndepicted Carlyle himsel as such a heroin Work. One o Carlyle’s heroes, OliverCromwell, was also the subject o a paintingby Brown.

Brown painted Bible stories, some o themrelated to commissions or stained glass orbook illustration. As a young man he seemsto have been a conventional member o theChurch o England but by the time o hisdeath he had become an agnostic. He seemsto have admired the Bible not as a source oreligious doctrine but because o the lessonsit had or modern society.

The Portrait PainterBrown did not paint many commissionedportraits: most o his portraits are o riendsor amily, and many o their aces alsoappeared as characters in his story paintings.For his independent portraits he did not usethe standard ormulae o the proessionalVictorian portraitist. He varied his approachin response to each sitter, but all his portraitsare intimate and direct, without attery.Several o his portraits combine an individuallikeness with a more generalised meaning.

Brown’s portraits o children are particularlyvivid. With his unerring ability to see throughconvention, he was able to depict childrenas real people, without the sentimentalityor sweetness characteristic o Victorian childportraiture.

The DesignerBrown was one o the original partners oMorris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co, the designfrm ounded by William Morris in 1861.Brown designed over one hundred cartoonsor stained glass windows which were madeby the frm, mainly or churches but with aew domestic commissions. His windows,like his paintings, possess originality,vigorous design and strong expression.He also designed textiles and wallpaperswhich can no longer be identifed, and aew pieces o urniture in an austere andsimple style. Brown, jointly with Rossetti,also designed rames or their pictures. Bothartists considered rames not as decorative

additions but as integral to their paintings.Many o the works in this exhibition are intheir original rames designed by Brown.

Brown was an early advocate o the equalityo the fne and the decorative arts, anattitude undamental to the philosophy oWilliam Morris and later o the Arts andCrats Movement, whose leading fgureswere great admirers o his work.

Detail o the MP in Work,1852–63, oil on canvas© Manchester City Galleries

Detail o an Irish man in Work,1852–63, oil on canvas© Manchester City Galleries

Detail o the beer seller in Work,1852–63, oil on canvas© Manchester City Galleries

Byron’s Dream 1874, oil on canvas© Manchester City Galleries

The English Boy 1860, oil on canvas© Manchester City Galleries



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The Manchester PeriodIn 1878 Brown was commissioned by theCorporation o Manchester to paint muralso the history o Manchester in the newTown Hall. At frst he worked on the designsin London and came up to work in the TownHall or short periods. The murals took arlonger than expected to execute. Brownand the Manchester artist Frederic Shieldshad originally been asked to paint six each.Shields later withdrew and Brown paintedall twelve. Between 1881 and 1887 he livedin Manchester, frst at Crumpsall and thenat Victoria Park. Ater 1887, he moved back to London and continued to work on themurals there. The last one was completed in

1893 only six months beore he died.While in Manchester, Brown took part insocial and cultural lie, and his reputationwas sealed when his masterpiece Workwas bought or the Art Gallery in 1885. Hepainted portraits o Manchester people,and depicted some o his Manchesterriends as characters in the murals. Duringthe harsh winter o 1886 he was one othe organisers o a Labour Bureau ormedto try and relieve unemployment. He alsoprovided decorations on a colossal scale or

the Manchester Royal Jubilee Exhibition heldin 1887.

The murals were the culmination oBrown’s career, and o his early ambitionsto be a mural painter. At the end o his lie,Manchester gave him the opportunity hehad always wanted.

The Town Hall Murals

As part o Ford Madox Brown:Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer , you can visit FordMadox Brown’s murals in the Great Hall inManchester Town Hall, rom 10am–5pm onthe ollowing Sundays: 25 September,16 October, 23 October, 30 October,6 November, 20 November, 4 December,11 December, 18 December, 8 January,15 January, 22 January, 29 January.

A fully illustrated catalogue is available in

the Gallery Shop priced £19.95

Events ToursExhibition tours every Saturday and Sundaythroughout the exhibition3–4pm, except 13 Nov 24, 25, 30, 31 Dec 8,28/29 JanExplore the highlights o the exhibition with atrained volunteer guide.Free, ater entry to the exhibition

Wednesday 13 October, 12.30–1pmFocus tourFord Madox Brown’s modern lie masterpiecesWith gallery curator Rebecca MilnerFree, ater entry to the exhibition

Wednesday 9 November, 12.30–1pm

Focus tourFord Madox Brown’s landscapesWith gallery curator Rebecca MilnerFree, ater entry to the exhibition

Sunday 13 November 3–4pm,Sunday 8 January 3–4pmExhibition tour in British Sign LanguageTake a tour with Jennier LittleFree, ater entry to the exhibition

Thurs 1 December 10.30–12 noonExhibition tour with Audio DescriptionTake a tour o the exhibition with curator,Rebecca Milner and audio describer, AnneHornsby.Free, ater entry to the exhibitionFree entry to exhibition or sighted guides ovisually impaired visitors

Wednesday 7 December, 12.30–1pmFocus tour

Ford Madox Brown’s modern lie masterpiecesWith gallery curator Rebecca MilnerFree, ater entry to the exhibition

Wednesday 11 January, 12.30–1pmFocus tourFord Madox Brown’s landscapesWith gallery curator Rebecca MilnerFree, ater entry to the exhibition

TalksSaturday 1 October, 2–3.30pmFord Madox Brown and ManchesterTalk by Julian Treuherz, curator o Ford Madox Brown: Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer

Friends, Best Friends and Patrons only£10. Booking essential

Saturday 19 November, 2–3.30pmFord Madox Brown: Lie, Love, ArtTalk by Angela Thirlwell, author o Into theFrame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown£10. Booking essential

Saturday 26 November, 11am–5pmInspired by the Pre-Raphaelites Art MasterclassSession led by artist and lecturer Paul Brotherton.Includes visit to art store with curator RebeccaMilner. Best Friends and Patrons only£60, all materials and rereshments included.Booking essential as numbers are limited.

Sunday 15 January, 2–3.45pmFord Madox Brown’s Manchester Murals

Talk by Julian Treuherz, curator o Ford Madox Brown: Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer £10. Booking essential

Booking information You can book and pay or the exhibition talks byAngela Thirlwel (Sat 19 Nov) and Julian Treuherz(Sun 15 Jan) online www.manchestergalleries.org/ordmadoxbrown or in person at the shop.

For Friends-only eventsPlease call 0161 235 8814 oremail [email protected]

The Pre-Raphaelite ExperimentUntil May 2012We have a special interest in Ford Madox Brownand his legacy because Manchester Art Galleryhas an important collection o Pre-Raphaelitepaintings. They were bought or the city by ourVictorian predecessors and we’ve embarked on

a project to fnd out what they mean to today’sMancunians.

Pop in to Gallery 6 on the frst oor where there’sspace or you to tell us what you think o the Pre-Raphaelites in general. We’ve been working withlocal amilies, schools and community groups tocontribute to this space.

Pre-Raphaelite bitesEvery Friday Nov 2011–March 201212.30–1pmLunchtime discussions around the Pre-Raphaelitepaintings. Come and have your say.

Design or ‘The Romans building a Fort at Mancenion, A.D. 80’ (Study or Manchester Town HallMural), 1879–80/1890, oil on canvas © Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Collections



Manchester Art Gallery

Mosley StreetManchester M2 3JLTel: 0161 235 8888Textphone: 0161 235 8893www.manchestergalleries.org/fordmadoxbrown

Open Tuesday–Sunday 10am–5pmClosed Mondays (except Bank Holidays), 24–26, 31 December, 1 January.

ManchesterCentral

Manchester Art Gallery

Town Hall

Lloyd Street

entrance

Directions to the Town Hall Murals

T h e I r i s h G i r l , 1 8 6 0 , F o r d M a d o x B r o w n © Y a l e C e n t e r f o r B r i t i s h

A r t , P a u l M e l l o n F u n d .

Headline sponsor

The official paint sponsorof Manchester City Galleries

To get to the Town Hall murals:Turn let out o Manchester Art Gallery,

walk towards Caé Nero on the corner.Cross the road at the pedestrian crossingand turn right. Ahead o you you will seethe Town Hall and on the let there is ahoarding. Turn let down Lloyd Street.Enter the Town Hall entrance on the rightand you will be directed by signage to theGreat Hall on the frst oor.

Opening times: 10am–5pm on theollowing Sundays: 25 September,

16 October, 23 October, 30 October,6 November, 20 November, 4 December,11 December, 18 December, 8 January,15 January, 22 January, 29 January. Moredates will be added, please check websitebelow or urther dates.

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