Benjamin Robert Haydon
Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846) was a British painter renowned for his historical subjects and grand romantic style. From a young age, he displayed a strong passion for art, which was nurtured by his family and early teachers. Despite facing significant challenges, including impaired vision and financial hardships, Haydon pursued painting as a career, relocating to London to develop his skills. His large historical canvases initially garnered recognition, yet they failed to translate into financial success, partly due to his contentious relationship with the Royal Academy, stemming from his critical writings. Throughout his life, he faced mounting debts, which culminated in imprisonment, while also supporting his family amid personal tragedies, including the loss of several children. Despite his struggles, Haydon was a prolific figure in the art community, influencing students such as Edwin Landseer. He also played a pivotal role in advocating for the acquisition of the Elgin marbles by the British government. Following his death, Haydon's artistic legacy faded, but he gained posthumous recognition for his writings, particularly his autobiography and lectures, which provide insight into his life and the art world of his time.
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Subject Terms
Benjamin Robert Haydon
English painter and memoirist
- Born: January 26, 1786
- Birthplace: Plymouth, Devonshire, England
- Died: June 22, 1846
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
Benjamin Robert Haydon, a painter of historical subjects, as a child displayed a precocious interest in art, and he was encouraged by his parents and his first teacher, all of whom were fond of painting as an avocation. Haydon determined to take up painting as a career and refused the more dependable livelihood promised by his father’s printing and publishing office. An eye inflammation had seriously impaired his vision, but it was characteristic of Haydon that this handicap merely increased his determination. He went to London in 1804, studied for two years, and then embarked upon the series of large historical canvases that made his reputation. Although these heroic paintings gained him wide recognition, they brought in very little money; moreover, the Royal Academy gave his work a cold reception, mostly because he wrote scathing articles about the academy’s tyranny over British art and taste for Leigh Hunt’s Examiner, thereby ensuring their lasting enmity. Frequently cheated in payments and commissions, often in debt and finally imprisoned for it, Haydon remained industrious, courageous, and optimistic. His family was often in want, and five of his eight children died. To support the family, he was forced to depend upon his lectures on painting; he gave free painting lessons and tried unsuccessfully to start another academy. His romantic paintings, vast in scope and grandiose in style, were known and admired throughout the world, but they did not sell. He numbered many famous writers and artists among his acquaintances, and his students included Edwin Landseer and Charles Eastlake. He waged a successful and almost single-handed campaign to persuade his government to purchase the Elgin marbles. None of his achievements, however, provided him with more than the barest of necessities. His final exhibition, which he had to finance himself, had to compete with an appearance of showman P. T. Barnum and the famous midget Tom Thumb. Haydon lost heavily, and this was more than he could bear. He committed suicide on June 22, 1846.
Haydon’s paintings gradually became relegated to obscurity, but he became posthumously known for his writings, specifically, his autobiography, which was published after his death as The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon. Haydon wrote clearly and in a strong, vigorous prose that reveals considerable natural talent. His account of his development as an artist is an energetic, accurate, and picturesque view of his times. It also forms the portrait of a singularly courageous man. A diary in twenty-six volumes, upon which the published autobiography is based, and his Lectures on Painting and Design, remain Haydon’s contribution to English literature.
Bibliography
Davis, N. S. “Wordsworth, Haydon, and Beaumont: A Change in the Role of Artistic Patronage.” Charles Lamb Bulletin 55 (July, 1986).
George, Eric. The Life and Death of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter, 1786-1846. 2d ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1967.
Jack, Ian. English Literature, 1815-1832. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Jones, Stanley. “B. R. Haydon on Hazlitt and Lamb: A Novelist’s Touch.” Charles Lamb Bulletin 63 (1988).
Lang, Varley. “Benjamin Robert Haydon.” Philological Quarterly 26, no. 3 (July, 1947).
Olney, Clarke. Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1952.
Parry, G. “The Grand Delusions of Benjamin Haydon.” Keats-Shelley Review 31 (1980).
Peters, Robert. Haydon: An Artist’s Life. Greensboro, N.C.: Unicorn Press, 1989.
Porter, R. J. “‘In Me the Solitary Sublimity’: Posturing and the Collapse of Romantic Will in Benjamin Robert Haydon.” In The Culture of Autobiography: Constructions of Self-Representation, edited by Robert Folkenflik. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993.
Woolf, Virginia. “Genius: Haydon.” In The Moment, and Other Essays. 1948. Reprint. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.