How does this artwork elucidate its Background and influences?
Brown explained that he had intended to demonstrate that the modern British workman could be as fit a subject for art as the more supposedly picturesque Italian lazarone (literally, the "mob," used to refer to the street people of Naples). He set the painting on Heath Street in Hampstead, of which he made a detailed study. Hampstead was at the time a wealthy area on the outskirts of London, which was undergoing rapid expansion. The development of the new sewerage and drainage systems in the city was also widely discussed in the press as an agent of modernisation. The character of "Bobus" appears in the writings of Thomas Carlyle as the epitome of a corrupt businessman who uses his money to market himself as a politician.
Brown's principal artistic model was the work of William Hogarth, in particular his paintings Humours of an Election and his prints Beer Street and Gin Lane. The Election paintings depicted both the vitality and the corruption of British society, while the prints set up a contrast between poverty and prosperity. While working on the painting Brown founded the Hogarth club to link artists who saw themselves as Hogarth's admirers and followers.The rustic aspects of the composition draw on the established tradition of the picturesque, epitomised by the work of artists such as John Constable and William Collins. The satirical and critical aspects of Hogarth's style work in tandem with Brown's Pre-Raphaelitism, with its intense concentration on the complication of the pictorial surface in conflicting details. This image of potentially violent and jarring confrontation is set in opposition to the social harmony and deference epitomised by the picturesque tradition.
Beer Street Naples picturesque Humours of an Election lazarone Beer Street and Gin Lane Hogarth club Heath Street Thomas Carlyle William Collins Pre-Raphaelitism Gin Lane John Constable Hampstead William Hogarth