Hampstead: A Sketch from Nature
Date1857
Artist
Ford Madox Brown
(English painter and designer, 1821–1893)
MediumWatercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper
Dimensions5 1/2 × 9 in. (14 × 22.9 cm)
frame: 12 5/8 × 16 1/4 in. (32.1 × 41.3 cm)
frame: 12 5/8 × 16 1/4 in. (32.1 × 41.3 cm)
Credit LineSamuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935
Object number1935-37
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextIn the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), John Ruskin advised the “Artists of England” to “go to nature…rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing.” In this scene of the view outside his window in Hampstead on the outskirts of London, Ford Madox Brown closely documents the rapidly changing landscape of England that took place during the Industrial Revolution. The scene is rendered with microscopic accuracy, encapsulating Ruskin's plea for close observation and replication.
