Work review hardly up to Star standard
Friday 23 November 2012
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EmailPeter Lindley's belated review of the Tate Britain's Pre-Raphaelite exhibition (M Star November 17) hardly lived up to the rigorous standards of art reviews in the paper.
Madox Brown's Work comes in for particularly ill-informed comment on its allegedly "grotesque" style and a predictable sneer at the "theologian and writer … no doubt making ready to give earnest comment."
These are Carlyle and FD Maurice, the latter being founder and principal of the Working Men's College.
I have not found a "poverty-stricken child" lying on the road, though there is a puppy in the foreground and a chicken in the middle distance.
In this plane of the painting is an implied comment by Brown - no politician is included among these "workers by hand and brain," but a man carrying a sandwich-board proclaims "Vote for Bobus."
Simon Nicholls
London N12
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