Page:Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, volume 1.djvu/311

 Three Peasants smoking ; /Ter aent smoken- A Peasant sleeping, and others drinking ; Braiiicer. Two of single figures; signed A. Brower. A Man and a 'Woman, with a Monkey smoking ; ITats dit, 4-c. A Woman making Cakes ; a circular. A 'Woman holding a Stove, and a Man lighting his Pipe. Six of Men and 'Women Peasants. In 1873 Wilhelm Schmidt published at Leipsic a life of Brouwer ; and Paul Mantz, in the ' Gazette des Beaux-Arts' (1879-80), and H. Raepsaet,in the ' Annales de la Societe Royale des Beaus-Arts de Gand' (1852), have contributed infoiToation con- cerning him.

BROUWER, Jan, was a native of Holland, and flourished about the year 1680. He was chiefly employed in engra'ving portraits, which possess no great merit. Among others is that of the Em- peror Leopold, after W. Vaillant.

BROWN. David, is known as a pupil of George Morland, whose works he imitated. He exhibited landscapes at the Royal Ac;. demy from 17&2 to 1797.

BROWN, FOBD Madox, was born on April 16, 1821, at Calais, his father, a half-pay naval oSicer, having taken up his residence abroad when after the wars he had failed to obtain another ship to command. His abiliiy to draw with accuracy was discovered at a very early age by reason of tlie lad having corrected when hardly five years old the drawing of the leg of a horse which he had seen executed by a relation. His father was delighted to find such an abijity in his son, and gave him the best art education which was in his power, employ- ing various masters to teach him in the French and Flemish towns in which the family successively made their home, and in Bruges and Ghent especially the lad received very careful teaching. One of his earliest productions was a portrait of his restless father which is still in existence, and considered a striking likeness of the naval officer. It was at Antwerp that Ford M. Brown really began his serious studies. He entered the studio of Baron Wappers, and was beginning to make important progress when his father decided to leave the city on a further wandering, and to settle down in some other place. To this course young Brown steadily objected, and being supported by his mother, whu was possessed of some small means in her own right, it was decided that the lad should remain at Antwerp, and that his parents should pursue their journey without him. His life at Antwerp was, however, soon to be broken into, as, very shortly after the family had left, the news reached the young student of the sudden death of his mother, and he had to hurry away to Calais to her funeral. His father and sister returned with him then to Antwerp, but soon after that the sister sickened and died and was buried at Antwerp, and then the health of Ford Brown broke down, and his son had to devote his attention to his father. This trouble was not all which befell him, for, in the meantime, he had married, and a few years after (1845) his wife, whose firstborn child had died and who had only recently presented him with another girl, became seriously ill, and the young artist had to proceed to Italy with his wife, baby daughter, and nurse, in the hope that in a more clement climate his wile might obtain strength. Nine months they spent in Rome, but Mrs. Brown got no better, and desired earnestly to return to her native land. They journeyed home by rapid stages ria Paris, but in spite of all the loving care which was lavished upon her, the invalid died in the arms of her husband in the very postchaise wliile driving down one of the streets of Paris on their way to Calais. The chief picture which the artist had commenced in Rome, a large triptych of ' Chaucer at the Court of Edward III.,' had been destroyed on the way, as it had proved too heavy to be carried with them, and too serious an impediment to their travelling, and the artist had therefore to return to England, a ^vidower, with a baby child, broken dow^n in health and in spirits, and without miiih tangible result of his labours during the long time he had spent abroad. Then ensued still further disappointment, for, settling in England, he found that his pictures were onlyreceived with derision, those which he sent in to the Academy being either promptly rejected or else hung so high as to be almost out of sight, or hung without the frames which he had specially designed for them, or in rooms where it was difficult to discover them. ' Christ washing the feet of St Peter' was skied close to the ceiling, ' Baa Lambs ' was hung in the octagon room out of the way, his picture of 'Chaucer' had its fine frame discarded, and his pictures of 'Shakespeare' and 'Our Ladye of Good Counsel' were returned on his hands. Surely never did a great painter meet with more discouragement. So accustomed was he to receive ridicule rather than praise, that when at last one man, attracted by the high merits of the artist, his marvellous poetic imagination and his glorious colouring, ventured to write to him and to ask to be received as his pupil, it was with a stout oaken stick that Madox Bro-wn prepared to receive the youthf il Rossetti who had so addressed him, feeling sure in his own mind that such a letter as had been written must have been intended as a hoax. It was in 1848 that Rossetti first went to see Madox Brown, and it was the cartoons which the elder artist had sent in for the decoration of the House of Peers which had so attracted the younger man. There were but seven years difference in age between them, but the strong affinity which each realized for the other ripened into a very close friendship, and as friends rather than actually as pupils they worked together for some time. BroA'n had been in advance of his age. He was a Pre-Raphaelite before the word was invented, and it was very largely from his influence that the new movement arose, although he never affihated himself with it or joined any society. His had been the originating force, his was the teaching and influence, albeit it was others who realized all that the new step meant, and put into force for the very first time the logical development of the theories which had been taught them by Brown. His influence over Rossetti was well-nigh unbounded, and the younger artist considered him as his " dearest and most intimate of friends, by comparison the only one whom he possessed." 'The disgraceful way in which the artist was treated by the Royal Academy was fortunately not followed by the purchasers of pictures, some of whom at length began to find out Brown and to give him commissions. It was fortunate that it was so, as he had married a second time, and had a young family growing up around him. His son, Oliver Madox Brown, was bom in 1855, and it was at just about this time that the tide began to turn in his favour. Just before the birth of Oliver he had completed one of his greatest works, 'The Last of England,*