Sculpture, Sculptors and the Brontës

This chapter presents an overview of the Brontës’ encounters with the art form of sculpture and traces influences of sculpture and sculptors in their lives and works. Through examining significant primary sources including periodicals, publications, church monuments, art exhibitions, as well as Branwell Brontë’s friendship with sculptor Joseph Bentley Leyland, multiple roles of sculpture and sculptors are revealed. Nineteenth-century discussions of neoclassicism and of sculptors such as Francis Chantrey and Anne Seymour Damer illustrate frameworks for the Brontës’ development as writers. For Charlotte and Branwell, especially, sculptural discourses became instrumental components of their writing, from their juvenilia through letters, poetry, Charlotte’s ‘Editor’s Preface to the New Edition of Wuthering Heights’, and novels such as Jane Eyre. These influences can be seen in their self-conceptions as writers, in characterisations of themselves or figures in their writings, in their use of the art form for representing creativity and in commemorations created through textual memorials.