Discussion/opinion British critics may not have appreciated Buckner's style of painting but what was at stake was not only realism or technique; it was about authority in a society that was entering a new period of mass culture. The art elite during this period did not approve of Buckner's wild popularity, which has always challenged the elite as it does today, almost by definition. In Victorian Britain, standards were set by class-coded taste, which underpins the reviews. Buckner's commercial success was as unseemly in the art world perhaps more than it is today. And just like today, technology played a roll in distributing reproductions to a much wider public than it had ever done before, blurring the boundary between elite and popular. The reviews clearly show the indignation, making a distinction between those works deemed as “art” and what was dismissed as mere popularity. The rise of artists like Richard Buckner exposed the fragility of that distinction. Buckner’s success was market-driven, bank-rolled by a emerging middle class that wanted images reflecting its own values, encouraging domestic sentiment, recognisable likeness, narrative immediacy. He had successfully marketised portraiture conveyed by the growing illustrated press. Artists who navigated that space successfully were treated as suspect precisely because they proved that art did not require institutional blessing to thrive. The masses were not so sensitive to air-brushed reality, they wanted beauty on their walls or as engravings in their books and journals to contrast their sometimes drab lives. Victorian anxieties about cultural decline were, in truth, anxieties about democratisation. In resisting “pop culture” Victorian art institutions were not preserving standards; they were resisting a shift in who had the right to define them.

Please forgive my over-simplification in my ignorance of what I am sure is a much more complex and nuanced set of circumstances. The article avoids this and simply states the facts (I hope) - but comment on either is most welcome.

The reason I researched this previously under-appreciated artist is because I came across this portrait in a gallery in London and had never heard of the artist.

On the back is a hand written note that says "Exhibited at R. Academy - when Sir F. Grant (the then President of Academy) said it was the best picture Buckner ever painted". Even though the note is anecdotal, I had to agree (from what I have seen since of his work).

The reasons for Buckner's blackballing are not as clear as the critiques - he had powerful friends, including Presidents of the Royal Academy both Sir Francis Grant and Leighton.

and whose sexual orientation had been a question of some speculation