Art Analysis: Work By Ford Maddox Brown

The mid-century painting was created by the popular artist Ford Maddox Brown and is called “Work”. It is a visual representation of many different social classes in the urban economy in the 1850’s. The different types of work that is shown in this painting are a young lady selling flowers, A man selling beer and another young man shoveling the soil. There are three social classes that are depicted in this painting each displaying separate actions from one another. The three social classes that are present in the artwork are the wealthy, middle class, and lower class men and women. The wealthier men seem to be idle in their work not having any tools in their hand but seem to be pleasantly talking among each other. In addition, further in the
Compared to the middle class people whose clothes look worn and torn, to big or too small for their body, and aren’t wearing any shoes. The middle class workers are doing basic common jobs, like the beer seller or the soil digger. The lower class level could be so poor they don’t have a sufficient job, for example, the two unemployed workers are resting in the grass under the shaded tree. There was also multiple dogs in the painting, I believe the dog with the shirt and collar belong to the wealthy class person. The dog with no collar or clothes just roaming around probably belong to the middle class. Ford’s painting is titled “ Work”, and demonstrates the author's opinion of the work of common laborers. I suggest that the author probably has seen or experienced each individual
There were multiple flags down the line of people that were marching some repeating, but the flags that I could identify in the artwork were Italy, Belgium, Russia, and Finland. The mood of the crowd from my view is excitement and energized; men raising their hats in the air, children dancing, and women with smiles on their face. Some details in the artists painting that stood out from the flow of the painting were the white liberty statue, the angels, and the discarded crowns alongside the dirt path. From these disorderly items, I suggest that the artists view of the events in 1848 was that he was against “ bourgeois monarchy” also known as Louis Philippe. The artist didn’t agree with how the monarch was running the government and went with the crowd in fighting for revolutionary freedom, liberty, and fraternity. I also believed the illustration was created before the collapse of the revolution in France because the people are revolting to resemble democracy which is the change they wanted to see in the government. That is probably why all the flags from different countries are in the painting as