SOURCE: Lang, Varley. “Benjamin Robert Haydon.” Philological Quarterly 26, no. 3 (July 1947): 235-47.

In the following essay, Lang portrays Haydon as a reformer in the field of the arts, focusing in particular on the painter's lobbying for increased public support of the arts and his belief that all English manufacturers and artisans should combine excellent workmanship with high artistic skill. In addition, Lang compares Haydon's ideas with those of later English art reformers, including Matthew Arnold, William Morris, and John Ruskin.

Whenever reforms in English art of the nineteenth century are mentioned, whether they concern standards of beauty in things of utility, or the social and economic influence upon art in handicrafts and manufactures, or the national, moral, and spiritual implications of art, one thinks immediately of Morris, of Ruskin, and of Arnold. It is usually taken for granted that the suggestions for improvement in the arts and in the...