Now, Barker has updated the biography - which has become the standard Bronte biography - with new material. When Barker's monumental family biography of the Brontes was published in 1994, it was as though a skilled restorer had come along to work on the group portrait, gently rubbing off the lurid colors of myth and gossip, and revealing the bones of truth underneath. It's a portrait of his sisters, but because the badly mixed paint is becoming transparent with age, the delicate pencil sketches beneath, including Branwell's own face, which he'd rubbed out of the composition, are gradually re-emerging.įor roughly a century and a half, the Brontes have been the subject of biographies that, much like poor Branwell's painting, cover up more than they reveal. Ironically, one of Branwell's clumsy efforts is now one of the most famous paintings in London's National Portrait Gallery. These lessons came at great expense, but what neither young Branwell nor his cash-strapped minister father, Patrick, could have known was that Robinson was a poor teacher: In fact, he failed to show Branwell how to mix his pigments correctly, and so the paintings Branwell did execute faded rapidly.

In 1834, Branwell began to study painting under a man named William Robinson, a member of the prestigious Royal Academy of Art. In the new, updated edition of her landmark biography The Brontes, Juliet Barker tells a sad story about Branwell, the infamous brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Your purchase helps support NPR programming.

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