John Brett (artist)
John Brett ARA (8 December 1831 – 7 January 1902) was a British artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, mainly notable for his highly detailed landscapes.[1]
Life
Brett was born near Reigate on 8 December 1831, the son of an army vet. His sister Rosa Brett was also an artist and during 1850 and 1851 they shared a studio.[2] In 1851 he began lessons in art with James Duffield Harding, a landscape painter. He also studied with Richard Redgrave. In 1853 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, but was more interested in the ideas of John Ruskin and William Holman Hunt, whom he met through his friend the poet Coventry Patmore. Inspired by Hunt's ideal of scientific landscape painting, Brett visited Switzerland, where he worked on topographical landscapes and came under the further influence of John William Inchbold.
In 1858 Brett exhibited The Stonebreaker, the painting that made his reputation. This depicted a youth smashing stones to create a road-surface, sitting in a brightly lit and brilliantly detailed landscape. (The treatment provided a strong contrast with Henry Wallis's painting of the same name, exhibited the same year.) The precision of the geological and botanical detail in Brett's version greatly impressed Ruskin, who praised the painting highly, predicting that Brett would be able to paint a masterpiece if he were to visit the Val d'Aosta in Italy. Partly funded by Ruskin, Brett made the trip to paint the location, exhibiting it in 1859, again to high praise from Ruskin, who bought the painting. Other critics were less effusive, one describing it as a "gravestone for post-Ruskinism".[3]
Brett continued to paint carefully detailed landscape views, staying in Italy on many occasions in the 1860s. He was always keen to stress the scientific precision of his rendering of nature, but often infused it with moral and religious significance, as recommended by Ruskin. In his later years he painted more coastal subjects and seascapes, subjects he came to know well due to his ownership of a 210-ton schooner, Viking (which had a crew of twelve), on which he travelled the Mediterranean.[4]
During summers in the 1880s Brett rented the castle at Newport, Pembrokeshire to use as a base for his large family while he painted, sketched and photographed the south and west coasts of Wales. An exhibition in 2001 at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, entitled John Brett - a Pre-Raphaelite on the Shores of Wales brought together many of the major works from this period of his career.
Brett was also a keen astronomer, having studied the subject from childhood. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1871. Brett was a founder member of the Art Workers' Guild and elected Master in 1890.[5]
See also
- List of Pre-Raphaelite paintings - including the works of John Brett.
- The Stonebreaker - Henry Wallis' painting on the same theme as Brett's.
References
- ^ 50 artworks by or after John Brett, Art UK. Retrieved 10 October 2016.
- ^ Payne, Christiana, John Brett: Pre-Raphaelite Landscape Painter (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 7–8.
- ^ The Critic, XVIII, 1859, p.544, quoted in Tate Gallery, The Pre-Raphaelites, 1984, p. 175
- ^ "Tate Collection – John Brett". Tate Online. Retrieved 9 April 2008.
- ^ "John Brett". Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
Sources
- Armstrong, Walter (1912). "Brett, John" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- Bridgman, Roger. "Brett, John Watkins (1805–1863)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3345. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
External links
- Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery's Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource Archived 21 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine includes three paintings by John Brett.
- The Pre-Raph Pack
- Online exhibition for John Brett
- Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections
- v
- t
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artists and
figures
- Lawrence Alma-Tadema
- George Price Boyce
- John Brett
- Ford Madox Brown
- Lucy Madox Brown
- Richard Burchett
- Edward Burne-Jones
- Georgiana Burne-Jones
- James Campbell
- John Collier
- Charles Allston Collins
- Frank Cadogan Cowper
- Evelyn De Morgan
- Walter Deverell
- Henry Treffry Dunn
- William Dyce
- Henry Holiday
- Arthur Hughes
- Edward Robert Hughes
- Frederic Leighton
- Robert Braithwaite Martineau
- Louisa Beresford, Marchioness of Waterford
- William Morris
- Alexander Munro
- Joseph Noel Paton
- Valentine Cameron Prinsep
- Christina Rossetti
- John Ruskin
- Emma Sandys
- Frederick Sandys
- Thomas Seddon
- Elizabeth Siddal
- James Smetham
- Rebecca Solomon
- Simeon Solomon
- John Roddam Spencer Stanhope
- Marie Spartali Stillman
- John Melhuish Strudwick
- Algernon Charles Swinburne
- Henry Wallis
- John William Waterhouse
- William James Webbe
- William Lindsay Windus
well-known
works
(period and
post-period)
- Ophelia
- Christ in the House of His Parents
- A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids
- Ecce Ancilla Domini
- Mariana
- The Light of the World
- Our English Coasts ('Strayed Sheep')
- The Scapegoat
- Paolo and Francesca da Rimini
- The Last of England
- Work
- The Awakening Conscience
- The Hireling Shepherd
- April Love
- Found
- Autumn Leaves
- Bocca Baciata
- Oxford Union murals
- Lady Lilith
- Roman Widow
- Mary Magdalene
- The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple
- Morgan le Fay
- Beata Beatrix
- The Shadow of Death
- Proserpine
- A Vision of Fiammetta
- Pygmalion and the Image series
- The Beloved
- Cymon and Iphigenia
- King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
- The Day Dream
- The Golden Stairs
- Dante and Beatrice
- Love's Messenger
- The Magic Circle
- The Legend of Briar Rose
- The Lady of Shalott (Waterhouse)
- The Roses of Heliogabalus
- Lilith
- Eos
- Flaming June
- Hope
- Hylas and the Nymphs
- Lady Godiva
- The Love Potion
- The Lady of Shalott (Hunt)
- I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott
- The Germ
- Hogarth Club
- Morris & Co.
- Rossetti and His Circle (1922 book)
- Dante's Inferno (1967 film)
- The Love School (1975 series)
- Desperate Romantics (2009 series)
- Effie Gray (2014 film)