“Dickens's Dream”.
Artist: Robert William Buss (1804–1875)
Photo credit: Charles Dickens Museum, London.
Text and Illustration from ART UK
This painting by Robert William Buss, an enthusiastic admirer of Charles Dickens’s writings, was painted five years after the author’s death in 1870.
The posthumous painting of Dickens celebrates his vivid imagination and illustrates characters from all his books, spanning 'Pickwick Papers' to 'Edwin Drood', surrounding Dickens in his Library at Gad’s Hill, Rochester, Kent, England.
The setting was modelled on Luke Filde's engraving, 'The Empty Chair', and the figure of Dickens was copied from a well-known photograph by John Watkins (from 1863).
Zephyrinus has visited Dickens's home, Gad's Hill, Rochester, Kent, and has stood in Dickens's Library (see picture, above). He can vouch that the picture exactly captures how the Library was, in Dickens's time, and how it is, today.
Listen to one of Charles Dickens's greatest stories, “Oliver Twist”, HERE
The Charles Dickens Museum Web-Site can be found HERE
A wonderful illustration of Dickens’ extraordinarily imaginative mind. -Note by Dante P.
ReplyDeleteDante P, as often is the case, is most perspicacious, and has seen instantly how Dickens was Blessed with such fore-sightedness that his wonderful stories, books, anecdotes, acting-skills, impacted themselves with great shock on the slumbering Victorian Society.
DeleteWe benefit, of course, by seeing how correct Dickens was in highlighting the Social Deficiencies extant in Victorian times.
Zephyrinus was very moved when visiting Gad's Hill Place, where Dickens lived and died. The highlight was to stand in Dickens' Study, where many of his novels were written, and see the desk that he had used. Plus, whilst visiting, Zephyrinus had the immense pleasure and privilege of meeting Marion Dickens, Charles Dickens' great-great-granddaughter.
Marion Dickens is actively involved in preserving his legacy and serves as the Chairman of the Charles Dickens Centre Trust, which works to restore Gad's Hill Place, Dickens's former home, as a museum.