The Cranbrook Colony was a group of artists who settled in

Cranbrook, Kent Cranbrook is a town in the civil parish of Cranbrook and Sissinghurst, in the Weald of Kent in South East England. It lies roughly half-way between Maidstone and Hastings, about southeast of central London. The smaller settlements of Sissing ...

from 1853 onwards and were inspired by seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish painters. They have been referred to as 'genre' painters as they tended to paint scenes of the everyday life that they saw around them in the rural area of Kent where they lived, typically scenes of domestic life; cooking and washing, children playing and other family activities. The group started with the painter Frederick Daniel Hardy who liked the countryside around Cranbrook and settled there in 1853. He was joined there after four years by his mentor, Thomas Webster, their studio being an old house in the High Street, of which Hardy occupied the ground floor. The group evolved in a rather loose and informal manner. Other artists who soon joined Hardy and Webster were Frederick Hardy's brother George Hardy,

John Callcott Horsley John Callcott Horsley RA (29 January 1817 – 18 October 1903) was an English academic painter of genre and historical scenes, illustrator, and designer of the first Christmas card. He was a member of the artist's colony in Cranbrook. Chi ...

, and George Bernard O'Neill (who married Horsley's cousin Emma Callcott), with

George Henry Boughton George Henry Boughton (4 December 1833 – 19 January 1905) was an Anglo-American landscape and genre painter, illustrator and writer. Life and work Boughton was born in Norwich in Norfolk, England, the son of farmer William Boughton. The fam ...

and Augustus Mulready frequently visiting. The artists and their families formed strong bonds and were active in their local community, playing a philanthropic role in Cranbrook Their works were mainly romanticized views of the countryside and sentimental images of bucolic simplicity which proved extremely saleable to the industrialists of the

Midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Mercia, Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in ...

. "The Cranbrook style was enormously popular, and had many imitators," including William Henry Knight; its artists continued a tradition "of small old-masterish pictures until the end of the century."Christopher Wood, ''Victorian Painting'', Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1999; p. 313.

References

British art movements English artist groups and collectives People from Cranbrook, Kent {{art-movement-stub