Charles Allston Collins

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Charles Allston Collins drawn by Millais in 1850

Charles Allston Collins (born January 25, 1828 in London , † April 9, 1873 ibid) was an English painter and writer.

Life

Charles Collins was the son of the successful English landscape painter William Collins (1788–1847) and the younger brother of the successful writer Wilkie Collins .

Convent Thoughts (1851)

At the age of 19 he attended the schools of the Royal Academy, where he made friends with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais . He was a conventionally academic painter who painted in the style of William Etty . When he spent a summer in Oxfordshire with John Everett Millais in 1850, he got to know the Pre-Raphaelite perspective . Millais proposed Collins as a member of the PRB. The nomination was rejected by Thomas Woolner on the grounds that Collins was not sufficiently interested in their ideas. Instead, he was more interested in Maria Francesca Rossetti , whom he courted when the Brotherhood met on Charlotte Street. Maria was flattered but had other plans for her future.

Convent Thoughts , his best known work, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851, where it was subject to general denunciation by critics regarding the Pre-Raphaelites. The Times wrote:

"We cannot blame enough, as broadly or as strongly as we wish to do, this strange disturbance of the mind or eye that continues to rage with undiminished absurdity among a class of youthful artists who call themselves PRB."

Collin's picture is typical of the early Gothic phase of the movement, and the piety of these works has led many critics to accuse the painters of being Roman Catholic sympathizers. The mood of the Convent Thoughts is certainly similar to Rossetti's early paintings, but the flowers and garden reflect Millais' influence. He failed because of his own claims.

Collins was an extraordinarily nervous man throughout his life. He confided in Holman Hunt that he had a stomach ache when he wanted to paint. He started new works before he had completed his current painting, leaving half a dozen unfinished canvases standing around.

His first painting was Berengaria's Alarm (1850), followed by Convent Thoughts (1851), May in the Regent's Park (1852) and Good Harvest 1854. Finally, he painted a portrait of Georgina Hogarth as Lady Grace (1855).

His brother Wilkie introduced him to Charles Dickens , who suggested he write articles for "Household Words". Collins first book "The New Sentimental Journey", descriptions of his visit to Paris, appeared as a series from June – July 1859 in Dickens' magazine All the Year Round . Collins also published The Eye-Witness: And His Evidence about Many Wonderful Things (1860).

Collins married Kate Macready Dickens , the daughter of Charles Dickens, on July 17, 1860, at Gad's Hill Place, the Dickens family home in Higham, Kent. For Kate, at the age of 20, this was the opportunity to escape from home because she did not love him. The separation of their parents also played a role. The couple moved to Paris in December 1860. They lived on a friendly basis because Collins was impotent. Meanwhile, she had a passionate affair with the famous painter Val Prinsep .

As a writer, he wrote a few ghost stories. Best known was The Trial for Murder (1865), co-authored with Charles Dickens.

Charles Allston Collins died on April 9, 1873 at the age of 45 after a prolonged illness at 10 Thurloe Place, South Kensington. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery.

Works

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Returning from the Haunts of the Seafowl, by William Collins Picture of the Month at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
  2. ↑ Kate Dickens Perugini
  3. ↑ Collins grave in Brompton Cemetery, London.
personal data
SURNAME Collins, Charles Allston
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British painter and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH April 9, 1873
Place of death London