The life of the only Bronte son, would-be poet and portrait painter Branwell, is being explored in a newly-opened exhibition, curated by Huddersfield poet Simon Armitage, at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Howarth.
Hot on the heels of the Sally Wainwright television drama, To Walk Invisible, which was screened over Christmas and also focused on the brother of the famous novelists, the exhibition features letters, drawings and personal possessions, mostly taken from the museum’s collections.
The title of the exhibition, Mansions in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of Branwell Bronte, comes from a letter that the ambitious 19-year-old Branwell wrote to the poet William Wordsworth. With the letter he enclosed one of his own poems, expressing the hopes and dreams of a young romantic intent on building ‘mansions in the sky’. Wordsworth never responded. The letter has been loaned to the Parsonage Museum by the Wordsworth Trust. The exhibition commemorates the 200th anniversary of the ‘mansions in the sky’ letter.
Simon, the Marsden-born writer, now Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, has enjoyed considerably more success with his work than the hapless Branwell. Such is his standing in the literary community that he was asked to write a new series of poems to enhance the exhibition.
As well as selecting the objects on display, Simon has written a poetic response to each item. He explained: “Most people know Branwell either as the ne’er-do-well brother of the Bronte family or as the shadowy absence in his famous portrait of his three sisters. We’ll never really know Branwell properly, all his light and shade, but in putting together events for his bicentenary I feel as if I’ve been privy to some of his hopes and dreams, especially the ambitions he had for himself as a Romantic poet among the Yorkshire moors.”
The exhibition, which runs until January 2018, also includes a dramatic recreation of Branwell’s bedroom, imagining how it might have looked in the late 1830s when he had ambitions to become a portrait artist. Designed in collaboration with the production team of To Walk Invisible, the installation presents an unmade bed, floor splattered in paint and ink and half-completed artworks all around. Branwell’s poem that he sent to Wordsworth is played in a continuous loop, adding to the sense of frenzy and chaos in the room – a metaphor for the turmoil in the mind of Branwell himself.
The Bronte Society, which is the caretaker of the Bronte legacy and parsonage, is one of the oldest literary societies in the English-speaking world and was founded in 1893. It collects and exhibits material relating to the Brontes, who lived in what is now the Parsonage Museum from 1820 to 1861.
Admission to the museum is from £4 for children to £8.50 for adults. For details of opening times visit bronte.org.uk or call 01535 642323.
