The Art of Ford Madox Brown - Hardcover

"Readers of Ken Bendiner's book will emerge with an avalanche of new facts, new ideas, and new angles of approach. There is so much that is fresh here--a probing account of Brown's social conscience; a truly revelatory discussion of the humorous vein that runs throughout his work; a visually acute analysis of his variety of sharp-focus realism; and an original consideration of his often unexpected affinities to the aesthetic movement."--Robert Rosenblum, New York University

This is the first comprehensive history devoted to the art of Ford Madox Brown (1821-93), in which his paintings establish him as a major figure in the most important new art movement of Victorian England, Pre-Raphaelitism. The book presents a new explanation of the development and basic aims of Pre-Raphaelite art as a whole and offers a revealing discussion of the power and importance of the humor and negative spirit that run throughout Brown's work. It also ties Brown's realist approach to British decorative taste at midcentury and redefines his place in the Aesthetic Movement, a cultural trend that dominated the latter half of the nineteenth century. In addition, the artist's socialist leanings and nationalistic tendencies, expressed in depictions of workers, children, women, and religious scenes, are set out more fully than in any previous literature on the artist.