ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

and my friends, French or Belgian often discussed them; we did not require to go to
Rome for this.' 64 He must have become even more aware of their artistic principles
when he moved to London and shared a studio in Tudor Lodge with William Cave
Thomas who had studied in Munich under the Nazarene artist Wilhelm von Kaulbach
(c. 1804–1874). The close relationship between these two artists at this time is
emphasised by Brown's choice of The Spirit of Justice for his next Westminster entry.
Thomas had already been selected to execute a fresco of that subject in the House of
Lords but was required to enter his cartoon into the 1845 competition. Their designs
both utilised 'a three-tier system' and included 'a poor widow with her child.' 65
Brown did not win a prize in either of the two Westminster competitions that he
entered but his next work continued the medieval theme of The Spirit of Justice.
Inspired by the medieval style building and many of the entries, such as Daniel
Maclise’s Spirit of Chivalry (completed 1847, fresco, Houses of Parliament), he
thought about designing a painting on the subject of 'the Origin of our Native
tongue.' 66 He designed an enormous triptych The Seeds and Fruits of English Poetry
in London in 1845. As can be seen from two early compositional studies at BMAG
(cat. nos. 15 and 16) the central panel depicted an imagined scene from the life of
Chaucer in which he reads The Legend of Custance to Edward III and his household
which includes his sons John of Gaunt and The Black Prince. The wings were a
homage to British poets. Two studies he made of the whole composition (Figs. 1 and
77) show that on one wing he depicted Milton, Spenser and Shakespeare, on the other,
64
C. Gurlitt, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Munich, 1895, p. 35 (cited op. cit. at note 63, p. 285).
65
Ibid., p. 218.
66
On 4 September 1847 Brown began a diary of his painting and on the first page explained that 'the
sight of M'Clise's cartoon of "Chivalry" and the wish to handle more luxuriant & attractive materials'
had made him decide upon a medieval subject connected to 'the Origin of our native tongue' (Virginia
Surtees, ed., The Diary of Ford Madox Brown, New Haven and London, 1981, p. 1). See catalogue pp.
204-208 for a full discussion of the history of the painting.
98