The Revolution in Eighteenth-Century Art: Ten British Pictures 1740-1840 - Hardcover

Wark, Robert R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0873281926 ISBN 13: 9780873281928

Publisher: Huntington Library Pr, 2001

Synopsis

The ten pictures presented here offer vivid proof of the richness and versatility of British painting during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. All are in the Huntington collection, and in discussing them the author has brought into perspective a fascinating period in European art. At no previous time, he says, "is there such a radical variety of forms produced by artists working at the same time under the same circumstances." The history of art epochs prior to the 18th century is largely the study of a series of clearly defined styles, each of them remarkably consistent throughout Europe. In the second half of the 18th century, however, there is a fundamental departure from this orderly procession, and nowhere is this departure more apparent than in England. We find not one style but many; artists borrow from ancient Greece or from India and China, from the Byzantine or from the just-closing rococo period. Nor is it unusual to find these variations in style within the work of a single artist. Sir Joshua Reynolds, for instance, uses widely different approaches in two Huntington paintings; the portrait of Mrs. Siddons, majestically enthroned between her two shadowy attendants, draws heavily on Classic and Renaissance symbolism, while that of Lavinia, Countess Spencer, is simply the charmingly intimate portrayal of a mother and her little boy. The ten pictures are presented in chronological order, from Hogarth's Bishop Benjamin Hoadly (about 1739) to Turner's The Grand Canal, Venice (1837). Some such as Pinkie and The Blue Boy, are well known; others, such as Richard Wilson's River Scene with Bathers, will be less familiar. All have been chosen for the light they cast on a period of profound change, which starts as English painting takes leave of the rococo, and ends in the beginnings of modern art.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert R. Wark was Curator of the Huntington Art Collections from 1956 to 1990.

From Publishers Weekly:

Between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, European art was a maelstrom of various styles and influences. Robert R. Wark (Early British Drawings in the Huntington Collection), former curator of the Huntington Art Collections in California, explains this pivotal era in his lucid, concise volume, The Revolution in Eighteenth-Century Art: Ten British Pictures 1740-1840. Wark uses 10 paintings and drawings by the likes of Hogarth, Reynolds, Blake, Constable and Turner to illuminate the competing trends of the period, showing how they were sometimes embodied in the work of a single artist and how they eventually gave way to modern art. (May)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Huntington Library Pr
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0873281926
• ISBN 13: 9780873281928
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144