Benjamin Robert Haydon Criticism
Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) was an English autobiographer, essayist, critic, and diarist whose legacy is more literary than artistic. Although he aspired to be a great historical painter, Haydon is better remembered for his vivid and ambitious writings. His Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter, from His Autobiography and Journals (1853), published posthumously at his wife's request, reveals his grandiose language, personal conflicts, and financial struggles, showcasing literary qualities that have led to multiple reissues. Despite his early success with works like The Assassination of Dentatus and Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, Haydon's financial difficulties and disputes with the Royal Academy marked his career.
Haydon's passionate advocacy for the Elgin marbles and his disputes with figures like Richard Payne Knight reflect his public engagement with art. He was deeply influenced by Renaissance artists and believed in high art's patriotic and religious expressiveness. Despite his artistic challenges, Haydon's friendships with luminaries like John Keats and William Wordsworth highlight his significant cultural connections, as noted in John Keats and Benjamin Robert Haydon.
His autobiographical and journal writings, which total twenty-six folios, reveal a man beset by artistic ambition and personal angst. Haydon's work is characterized by a romantic and dramatic flair, chronicling his views on art, correspondence, and his struggles with debt and recognition. Critics like Aldous Huxley, in the Introduction to The Autobiography and Memoirs of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846), argue that Haydon's true talent lay in writing rather than painting. Others, such as Eric George, have explored the darker emotional depths of his writings, as described in Haydon on Haydon.
The critical reception has focused on Haydon's dramatic prose and introspective analyses, often marked by his distorted self-perception. Despite his insistence on truth, his writings are tinged with a romanticized self-image, a topic explored by Roger J. Porter in ‘In me the solitary sublimity’: Posturing and the Collapse of Romantic Will in Benjamin Robert Haydon. His influence as a reformer is also noted by Varley Lang, who compares Haydon's ideas to later art reformers in Benjamin Robert Haydon. Ultimately, while Haydon's paintings did not achieve lasting acclaim, his writings offer a compelling study of a complex and ardent figure in the Romantic era.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Essays
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Introduction to The Autobiography and Memoirs of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846)
(summary)
In the following excerpt from his introduction to the 1926 edition of Haydon's Autobiography, Huxley insists that Haydon wasted his creative energy on painting when it was as a writer—in particular as a romantic novelist—that Haydon's true talent lay.
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John Keats and Benjamin Robert Haydon
(summary)
In the following essay, Olney discusses Haydon's influence on the young John Keats during the mid-1810s, when the two men shared an intense devotion to art. Haydon encouraged Keats to undertake themes considered by Olney to be more “grand” and “powerful” than the poet's earlier subjects.
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Benjamin Robert Haydon
(summary)
In the following essay, Lang portrays Haydon as a reformer in the field of the arts, focusing in particular on the painter's lobbying for increased public support of the arts and his belief that all English manufacturers and artisans should combine excellent workmanship with high artistic skill. In addition, Lang compares Haydon's ideas with those of later English art reformers, including Matthew Arnold, William Morris, and John Ruskin.
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Haydon on Haydon
(summary)
In the following essay, George, using as his source W. B. Pope's Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1960-63), the first publication of the full text of Haydon's Journals, focuses on Haydon's entries describing his “darker side”—the anguish over his own sanity, and those feelings of anxiety and despondency that plagued the artist throughout his entire career.
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B. R. Haydon and The Examiner
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In the following essay, Kearney attempts to prove that Haydon was the author of several anonymous letters and articles published in the Hunts' paper The Examiner during the early 1800s, using entries in Haydon's Diary to validate his argument and maintaining that the published pieces attest to the close relationship between Haydon and the Hunts during that time.
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‘In me the solitary sublimity’: Posturing and the Collapse of Romantic Will in Benjamin Robert Haydon
(summary)
In the following essay, Porter attempts to pinpoint the reason why Haydon felt the intense need to chronicle his life in his autobiography and in his journals.
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Introduction to The Autobiography and Memoirs of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846)
(summary)
- Further Reading