Edward Reginald Frampton (1870 – 4 November 1923) was a British
painter who specialized in
mural
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Word mural in art
The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...
s, specifically war memorials at churches. He painted in a flat, stately style, and was influenced by
French Symbolism
Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...
. He also worked in
stained glass, most probably learning from his father, Edward Frampton, who was a stained-glass artist. His work usually depicted symbolic subjects and landscapes; early in his career he made sculpture.
About
Early in his career he devoted himself to landscape painting; after a lengthy stay in France and Italy, and after seeing an exhibition of the collected works of Sir
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...
he chose to concentrate on illustrating the human form. All his larger and more important compositions have been figure subjects. Mr. Frampton considered himself to have been influenced both by
primitive Italian painting
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
and the English
Pre-Raphaelite design, and also by the compositions of
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French painter known for his mural painting, who came to be known as "the painter for France". He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Beaux ...
.
Edward Reginald Frampton died in Paris on 4 November 1923.
A notable feature of much of the artist's painting is the almost total absence of high lights and cast shadows. Such a mode of treatment, in the hands of a less capable draughtsman, might well produce a painful impression of feebleness or lack of definition. Not so, however, in the case of Mr. Frampton. With him, indeed, this diffused illumination is a matter of deliberate purpose. He adopts a subdued tone from a sense of decorative fitness, his aim being to ensure the flat effect and the subordination proper to mural backgrounds, as distinct from the meretricious illusion of prominent relief and receding distances, which disqualifies the average easel- picture from a place in any broad architectonic scheme. Mr. Frampton's compositions, on the contrary, are instinct with a restful and dignified serenity, no less satisfying than transcendental.
As typical of this phase of his work may be mentioned a large panel depicting a scene from the legend of St. Brendan. The incident is one with which all readers of Matthew Arnold's poems must be familiar—to wit, St. Brendan encountering Judas Iscariot on the iceberg. The quality of this picture recalls a forgotten chef- d'œuvre of Spencer Stanhope's, viz. The Waters of Lethe. The twilight atmosphere is the same in both cases, but there is this difference, that Mr. Frampton surpasses the deceased artist in technical mastery of "echo".[The International Studio]
Notes
Further reading
*Holme, Charles (Ed.).
The International Studio, Volume 66' (The International Studio, 1919).
External links
*
(artcyclopedia.com)
Image gallery(artmagick.com)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frampton, Edward Reginald
1870 births
1923 deaths
19th-century British painters
English male painters
20th-century English painters
British stained glass artists and manufacturers
English muralists
19th-century British male artists
20th-century English male artists