Download or read book Benjamin West and the Struggle to be Modern written by Loyd Grossman and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the time of his death in 1820, Benjamin West was the most famous artist in the English-speaking world, and much admired throughout Europe. From humble beginnings in Pennsylvania, he had become the first American artist to study in Italy, and within a few short years of his arrival in London, was instrumental in the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts (he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds to become its second President) and became history painter to King George III. In his lifetime, West's meteoric rise to prominence and the great pleasure he took in his success attracted criticism, and his posthumous reputation took a savage mauling from Victorian critics, one of whom dubbed him 'The Monarch of Mediocrity'. But even at his critical nadir, West's most celebrated work, The Death of General Wolfe, commemorating the British victory at the Battle of Quebec in 1759 and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1771, continued to fascinate. Although it was not, as is sometimes claimed, the first history painting to feature contemporary costume, it was the first picture in such a vein to become a critical and popular success in Britain. West remains today the most neglected and misunderstood of Britain's great eighteenth-century artists, lacking the social bite of Hogarth, the bravura of Reynolds or the easy elegance of Gainsborough. Nor was he a forceful writer (unlike Hogarth and Reynolds), and he did not possess the intellectual credentials to which so many of his fellow artists aspired. And yet, as Loyd Grossman asserts in his new book, West was extraordinarily in tune with the artistic and intellectual currents that swirled through his turbulent times. He was in the vanguard of both Neoclassicism and Romanticism, and among the very first artists to give visual expression to the exciting and heroic qualities of contemporary events, as opposed to episodes dredged up from the biblical, classical or mythological past, which had long enjoyed the highest artistic status. West's Wolfe was painted at a time when Europeans were just beginning to abandon the tendency to look backwards. Men and women of letters, philosophers and historians were increasingly convinced that modernity could equal and even surpass the achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans. This new-found ability to believe in the value of the present and to look forward to a progressive future is very much the foundation of the 'modern' attitude that has affected the way we live and think ever since. While acknowledging that West's reputation is still precarious, Grossman explains why Wolfe was such an instant success and why this thrilling work of art continues to exercise such a strong grip on our imaginations nearly 250 years after it was first shown to the public. He situates West in the midst of Enlightenment thinking about history and modernity, and seeks to demolish some of the prejudices about the talent and intentions of the young man from the Pennsylvania frontier who attained such eminence at the British court.

Download or read book An Introduction to Nineteenth Century Art written by Michelle Facos and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the tools of the "new" art history (feminism, Marxism, social context, etc.) An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Art offers a richly textured, yet clear and logical, introduction to nineteenth-century art and culture. This textbook will provide readers with a basic historical framework of the period and the critical tools for interpreting and situating new and unfamiliar works of art. Michelle Facos goes beyond existing histories of nineteenth-century art, which often focus solely on France, Britain, and the United States, to incorporate artists and artworks from Scandinavia, Germany, and Eastern Europe. The book expertly balances its coverage of trends and individual artworks: where the salient trends are clear, trend-setting works are highlighted, and the complexity of the period is respected by situating all works in their proper social and historical context. In this way, the student reader achieves a more nuanced understanding of the way in which the story of nineteenth-century art is the story of the ways in which artists and society grappled with the problem of modernity. Key pedagogical features include: Data boxes provide statistics, timelines, charts, and historical information about the period to further situate artworks. Text boxes highlight extracts from original sources, citing the ideas of artists and their contemporaries, including historians, philosophers, critics, and theorists, to place artists and works in the broader context of aesthetic, cultural, intellectual, social, and political conditions in which artists were working. Beautifully illustrated with over 250 color images. Margin notes and glossary definitions. Online resources at www.routledge.com/textbooks/facos with access to a wealth of information, including original documents pertaining to artworks discussed in the textbook, contemporary criticism, timelines and maps to enrich your understanding of the period and allow for further comparison and exploration. Chapters take a thematic approach combined within an overarching chronology and more detailed discussions of individual works are always put in the context of the broader social picture, thus providing students with a sense of art history as a controversial and alive arena of study. Michelle Facos teaches art history at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research explores the changing relationship between artists and society since the Enlightenment and issues of identity. Prior publications include Nationalism and the Nordic Imagination: Swedish Painting of the 1890s (1998), Art, Culture and National Identity in Fin-de-Siècle Europe, co-edited with Sharon Hirsh (2003), and Symbolist Art in Context (2009).

Download or read book British Art and the Seven Years War written by Douglas Fordham and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2010-09-10 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 and the American Declaration of Independence, London artists transformed themselves from loosely organized professionals into one of the most progressive schools of art in Europe. In British Art and the Seven Years' War Douglas Fordham argues that war and political dissent provided potent catalysts for the creation of a national school of art. Over the course of three tumultuous decades marked by foreign wars and domestic political dissent, metropolitan artists—especially the founding members of the Royal Academy, including Joshua Reynolds, Paul Sandby, Joseph Wilton, Francis Hayman, and Benjamin West—creatively and assiduously placed fine art on a solid footing within an expansive British state. London artists entered into a golden age of art as they established strategic alliances with the state, even while insisting on the autonomy of fine art. The active marginalization of William Hogarth's mercantile aesthetic reflects this sea change as a newer generation sought to represent the British state in a series of guises and genres, including monumental sculpture, history painting, graphic satire, and state portraiture. In these allegories of state formation, artists struggled to give form to shifting notions of national, religious, and political allegiance in the British Empire. These allegiances found provocative expression in the contemporary history paintings of the American-born artists Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley, who managed to carve a patriotic niche out of the apolitical mandate of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Download or read book American Adversaries written by Emily Ballew Neff and published by Museum of Fine Arts (Houston). This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Illuminating essays and more than two hundred images offer a compelling account of the 18th-century contemporary history painters John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West--America's first global art superstars"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Benjamin West s The Death of General Wolfe written by Dennis Montagna and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Art in a Season of Revolution written by Margaretta M. Lovell and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2007-02-13 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Lovell delights, astonishes, and challenges us with her insightful new readings of early American paintings and material culture objects."--"Journal of the Early Republic"

Download or read book The Vision of Columbus written by Joel Barlow and published by . This book was released on 1787 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Deaths and Enlightenment Thought written by Stephen Miller and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Hume and Johnson told profoundly different views of religion, their political thinking has much in common. Their reformist thought differs radically from what might be called the transformist thought of Marat, who hoped the French would become disinterested citizens whose civil religion was patriotism.".

Download or read book Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans written by Edward Eggleston and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Life Studies and Works of Benjamin West Esq President of the Royal Academy of London written by John Galt and published by . This book was released on 1820 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Behold the Hero written by Alan McNairn and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 1997 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He argues that Wolfe became the embodiment of British patriotism and the superiority of the English way of life, and that the multitude of literary and visual works about Wolfe, which focus primarily on his death, were created in an environment in which legends of inspiring, politically persuasive heroics were much in demand.

Download or read book Art as Evidence written by Jules David Prown and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art As Evidence celebrates the career of Jules Prown, historian of American art and a pioneer in the study of material culture. It brings together some of his most influential essays along with an introductory chapter, and an intellectual autobiography.

Download or read book Hogarth s Harlot written by Ronald Paulson and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-12-03 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1732, a blasphemous burlesque of the Christian Atonement was published in England without comment from the government or Church of England. The author explains this absence of censure through a detailed examination of the parameters of blasphemy in 18th century England.

Download or read book Pioneers of France in the New World written by Francis Parkman and published by . This book was released on 1885 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Picturing History written by Barbara J. Mitnick and published by Rizzoli International Publications. This book was released on 1993 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book accompanies the exhibition organized by Fraunces Tavern Museum, New York City.

Download or read book American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century written by National Gallery of Art (U.S.) and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The energy and optimism of the new nation are abundantly apparent in this catalogue. It features some of the icons of American art, such as John Singleton Copley's The Copley Family and Gilbert Stuart's portraits of the first five presidents. Numerous paintings, including Benjamin West's Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), are discussed from a new perspective, the result of information culled from letters, wills, and other previously unpublished documents. The author offers new interpretations of some works, among them Charles Willson Peale's portrait of the Baltimore couple Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming. The volume is richly illustrated, with carefully selected comparative illustrations.

Download or read book Joseph Wright of Derby written by Matthew Craske and published by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies. This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revelatory study of one of the 18th century's greatest artists, which places him in relation to the darker side of the English Enlightenment Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797), though conventionally known as a 'painter of light', returned repeatedly to nocturnal images. His essential preoccupations were dark and melancholy, and he had an enduring concern with death, ruin, old age, loss of innocence, isolation and tragedy. In this long-awaited book, Matthew Craske adopts a fresh approach to Wright, which takes seriously contemporary reports of his melancholia and nervous disposition, and goes on to question accepted understandings of the artist. Long seen as a quintessentially modern and progressive figure - one of the artistic icons of the English Enlightenment - Craske overturns this traditional view of the artist. He demonstrates the extent to which Wright, rather than being a spokesman for scientific progress, was actually a melancholic and sceptical outsider, who increasingly retreated into a solitary, rural world of philosophical and poetic reflection, and whose artistic vision was correspondingly dark and meditative. Craske offers a succession of new and powerful interpretations of the artist's paintings, including some of his most famous masterpieces. In doing so, he recovers Wright's deep engagement with the landscape, with the pleasures and sufferings of solitude, and with the themes of time, history and mortality. In this book, Joseph Wright of Derby emerges not only as one of Britain's most ambitious and innovative artists, but also as one of its most profound. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art