British painting in the 18th c -Foreword.

• Throughout all the 18th • For most English people

c. the majority of people
still lived in the
countryside (about
80%), reduced to 50 %
only in the 1850’s!!.
• According to some
foreign travellers the
English countryside
looked like a well-set
garden: herds of cows
and flocks of sheep
peopled the many paths
and roads.
life was confined to small
farms in little villages or
small towns.In this
context the power was
exercised by local
magistrates and squires,
local landowners, who
closed up their fields by
putting stakes to
increase private sheep-
breeding for the
production of wool.
Squires sent their
representatives to the
Parliament.
 British Painting - foreword
• Since the 2nd half of • They bought Georgian
the 18th c. enclosures mansions, married their
started to be a very daughters or sons to
serious problem for high ranked nobles or to
peasants.Squires and upwardly
rich gentlemen went administartors.
living in • They also filled the
London,signed ranks of the
agreements for the administration or even
administration of the Army: Magistrates
their lands,invested and
their money on naval lawyers,bankers,officers
expeditions to or even prelates. This
America and to the upper-middle class was
East. called THE GENTRY.
 British Painting
• They appear in
portraits in a solemn
posture to enhance
their prestige, others
simply showed
themselves in a
dignified manner.
The academic
painter Joshua
Reynolds was a
master of the genre
 Reynolds – portait-painting
• Reynolds was a classicist-
he gave little room to
creativity.
• Originality and talent
had to be controlled by
artistic discipline,
precision,care for details,
mastered by method
even to a pedantic
degree.
• Clothes,objects,pets,furni
ture, they all convey a
sense of dignity fitting to
the characters portayed
on the canvas,
• Colours look well-
amalgamated, as if
controlled.
• Single portraits enhance
the dignified or solemn
mannrs and posture of
the character.
• the portraits displaying
more characters look
harmomious, with well-
balanced levels to give
the idea of a pure style,
and a sense of propriety
and discipline.
Reynolds’s portraits
Reynolds’s portraits
Reynolds’s portaits
Reynolds’s portraits - gallery
Reynolds’s portraits - gallery
Reynolds’s portraits - gallery
 Landscape-painting
• One of the most important
British landscape-painters
was Richard Wilson.
• He was Welsh
• In 1729 he moved to London
where he devoted himself to
Portraiture under the guide
of Thomas Wright.
• 1750-59 His crucial
years: he took up
landscape -painting
thanks to his friendship
with the Venetian
painter F.Zuccarelli.
 Landscape painting
• 1550-57: His voyage • Beautiful views
to Italy: Venice and covering long
Rome. distances, horizons
• In Rome he got in which anticipated the
touch with the circle romantic taste for the
of some important Infinite.
French painters led by • R.Wilson was one of
the master Claude the founders of the
Lorrain. From these he Royal Academy of
specialised in painting Arts in 1769.
panoramas.
 • Thomas Jones, view of
Landscape-painting Pencarrig –
SouthWales.
• Pupil of R.Wilson. This
view was due to a
direct observation. The
painter’s emphasis is
given to the study of
the sky and the clouds,
probably for an
approaching storm.The
contrast of darkness
and light in the sky
anticipates
J.Constable’s studies,
so the general
threatening gloomy
atmoshere of the entire
composition.
 The Grand Tour
Classical ruins, • Painters, poets,
excavations, ancient philosophers like
temples became the Hackert,Lord
favourite subjects for Byron,Goethe,
lanscape-paintings. They Chateaubriand
reflected a new emerging considered this journey
sensibility which gave as a necessary step to
rise to the fashion of the their achievement as
Grand Tour. Young writers, a sort of
upper-class intellectuals Selffulfillment.
started to travel to the
Mediterranean
countries, especially to
Italy to visit the ancient
monuments of an
Immortal Past.
 Thomas Gainsborough
• Unlike other • With the exception of
countries in some important
Europe,patronage personality(Walpole
himself was a fine
was not so much
collector), public
developed under the patronage hardly rose in
Hannovers, except England throughout the
for prince 18th century.Only
Frederick,George architecture flowerished
II’s elder son, famous with the beautiful
collector and art- country mansions in the
Georgian Style of the
conaisseur. Gentry.
 Thomas Gainsborough
• But this was an • In such a difficult
aristocratic patronage, context for British
made up of nobles and painters, the two most
rich people who still outstanding personalities
peferred to pay foreign were J.Reynolds and
painters, especially T.Gainsborough, so
“Italian” Venetian
painters like Canaletto. different from
oneanother!.
• So
• The pictorial genre the
English loved best was ambitious,calculating,rat
Portraiture (Reynolds). ional and methodic the
Former, so
impulsive,sensitive and
passionate the Latter.
 Gainsborough/Reynolds
• Reynolds was all in all • Gainsborough attended
with the Augustan theatres, actors, loved
Establishment. music (he was himself a
• He attended the most versatile and brilliant
influential literary musician!!). He never set
circles,he travelled more foot outside Great
times to Italy to study Britain.
Classical Art on his • He wrote diaries, letters ,
Grand Tours. observations and
• Reynolds became the sketches about so many
official academic master different topics that he
of figurative Arts. kept for himself or some
friends (D.Garrick)
 T Gainsborough
• Gainsborough had to take
up painting Portraits to
make for a living, but his
“secret” passion was for
Landscape-painting.
• Yet, his portraits were
highly innovative.He used to
paint in the dark, just with
the light of a candle, forcing
his model to pose in the
dark while the painter kept
standing while painting for
to achieve the most realistic
effect.
 T. Gainsborough
• Once he finished his
compostion he brought
it to perfection by
letting some daylight
get in from the
window so as to reach
a more accurate
verosimilitude,
especially finishing off
• the frames of the
subject and put the last
touch to some objects.
 T. Gainsborough (portraits)
• Unlike many artists of
the time Gainsborough
painted his portraits by
himself with no aid by
any “pupil”or any
assistant (ie.for the
drapery, last touches, the
preparation or drawing
up of colours…and the
like..). This took longer
time for the artist but his
paintings were much
more “genuine” .
• He wanted to make his
portraits sound more
vivid, showing something
peculiar of the
personality of the
character portrayed on
the canvas.
• The posture, the look or
glance of the characters,
their eyes, smiles sound
natural. This required
time for the observation
and the careful study of
the subject.
Gainsborough (portraits)- Giovanna Baccelli
• Commisioned by the duke
of Dorset.
• Giovanna is shown in her
full dance-attire while
performing a
ballet.Extraordinary her
performance at the King’s
Theatre for the ballet “Les
Amants Surpris”.
• The composition follows a
spiral movement starting
from the tip of Giovanna’s
right foot.Notice the
tambourine bottom-left
which gives an Italian
touch.Miss Baccelli was
from Venice.
 Gainsborough (portraits)-Johann Christian Bach
• He was Bach’s youngest son. He was
chief church-organist at the Cathedral of
Milan and Bologna,he taught music to
Queen Charlotte and her sons, the
princes. A talented composer who had
great success in London.The painting was
commisioned by Bach himself for father
Martini for his private gallery in Bologna.
• Bach was painted with much
naturalism, in a thoughtful
and spontaneous posture,
simply to set an intimate,
almost private contact with
the viewer.He looks self-
confident,professional and
calm. The score adds realism.
Gainsborough (portraits)- Sir William Wollaston
• What is remarkable is
the originality of the
composition. Wollaston,
master of music at
Ipswich, seems relaxed
in this intimate posture
while turning back at
someone’s call with his
flute as if he has just
given up playing.The
viewer is compelled to
imagine the interlocutor,
• who is out of sight. The
folds of the velvet of
Wollaston’s waistcoat
adds movement and
naturalism
Gainsborough (landscapes)-Peasants to the
market at dawn. • The shining light at
sunrise reminds of the
Rubens’s landcapes,
while the general
choice of the subjects
with their pack-horses
are typical of the
Dutch School.In the
foreground what’s
remarkable is the
pretty girl leading the
train of peasants,
smartly dressed riding
an ambling horse,
while a young peasant
seems to be talking to
her sitting with his
legs crossed in a
natural position.
 2
• The girl is looking
down as if ashamed,
while the boy is
staring at her.The
whole picture seems
to reflect the poetical
realism evoked in the
poem of John Gay
“The Sheperd’s
Week”. The
atmosphere is
idyllic,evoking the
genuine feeling of
rustic life, so
expressing nostalgia
for the free
countrylife before the
coming of enclosures
and big factories.
Gainsborough (landscapes)- Landscape with the village Cornard.
• The clouds in the
background takes the
profile of the trees on the
left. The Horizon on the
right forces the viewer’s
sight to look at a distance.
The clearness of the river
reflecting the sky enhances
the light of the
composition. It is worth
pointing out the contrast
between the rocks on the
left bank ,closing the
perspective, and the flat
plain on the right which
gives depth to the view
(typical of the Dutch
landscapes).
Gainsborough’s poetical realism is given by the peasants
enjoying their free-time, the climatic effects of an
approaching storm far away in the distance, the village
still in the sun-light in the centre, the winding course of
the river which is a pictorial artifice to unify the 2 halves
of the composition.
Gainsborough (landscapes) –Seashore with fishermen
• This is a rare
maritime painting
by Gainsborough
modelled on those
of Claude Vernet, a
French master.
• The painter
reproduces
realistically the
contrast between
the stillness of the
moment after a
storm, whose effect
are still visible in
the efforts of the
fishermen while
drawing their boat
ashore in the foam
and the clouds on
the left together
with the 2 sail-
boats still strained
by the gale.
 Gainsborough’s landscapes
• Unlike Wilson or
• The white cliffs on T.Jones, Gainsborough
the left seems a followed more the Dutch
ghostly presence and Flemish tradition.
which enhances the
atmoshere of peril, a • He added informal and
danger the fishermen personal elements in his
pictures, marks of his
have just survived.
attempt to reproduce a
They also evoke the deeper and psychological
sublime beauty of characterization to his
Turner’s maritime compositions
paintings .
William Hogarth 1697-1764
• His father wanted him to
apprentice as a
silversmith.
• Hogarth opened up his
workshop as an engraver.
He published illustrations
and prints till he met the
painter J.Thornhill,whose
daughter Hogarth
married in 1726.
• From 1728 on, he soon
took up his career as a
painter, illustrating
narrative themes with
moral implications.
 W.Hogarth
• These narrative themes are
short stories illustrated by
his own pictures.
Hogarth’s narrative vein
came from the
“chronicles” of the time.
• In doing so, Hogarth was
somehow the forerunner
of the art of COMICS.
• A Harlot’s Progress
• A Rake’s Progress
• Marriage à la Mode
• An Election
• The Idle and Industrious
Apprentice
• The Four Stages of
Cruelty.
• Hogarth casts his
sardonic eye on reality,
where virtue gets
rewarded, while vice must
be punished.
 W.Hogarth
• Hogarth’s paintings,
engravings and
etchings were
extremely popular at
the time.
• He made caricatures
which mocked at the
highest institutions of
the time.
• He also made studies in
physiognomics and
paintings about
historical subjects, not
very successful, indeed.
 Hogarth’s caricatures – The company of
Undertakers-Physicians left/The Bench - right
Hogarth’s caricatures. Perriwhigs(left)The
laughing company(right)
 Hogarth
• He made fun of the • He also took over
abuses and corruption of J.Thornhill’s
the time, the same way
workshop and
Pope and Swift did with
their satirical works. founded an Academy
George II and George of Art of his own, in
III appointed him his attempt to defend
official portrayer. the Englishness of
• In 1753 he also art. Hogarth’s
published an essay “The academy lasted till
Analysis of Beauty”, in the foundation of the
which he exposed his
ideas and theories about
Royal Academy in
art. 1768.
 Hogarth (the painter) Marriage à la Mode
• Here Hogarth
considered the
paintings not just as
preparations for the
engravings but also as
works of art in their
own right.So he had to
bring them to a high
finished state. The
subjects are taken
from higher ranks of
society if compared to
the previous A Rake’s
Progress and a
Harlot’s Progress.
 Hogarth - Marriage à la Mode
• In this series (6 in all!),
Hogarth mocks at the
people who have got
money. They slavishly
follow fashions and
manners .They keep
themselves updated
simply to show off.
• In this, Marriage à la
Mode is a sort of
melodrama, comic and
serious at the same time,
which shows how a
marriage is made and
wrecked.
• It tells about the
arrangement of a
marriage,which allows the
nobleman Earl
Squanderfield’s son,
Viscount Squander to get
financial security thanks to
the wealth of his new
young wife,the daughter of
a rich but plebeian
Alderman of the City of
London, who can rise
socially.In this marriage
parents are selling their
children (bride and
groom).It begins with
money, proceeds with
adultery, venereal disease,
murder and finally suicide
 Hogarth Marriage à la Mode
• The Viscount is
shown sitting in a
chair exhausted
after his night out
on the town.
• He is ignoring his
young wife.
• A lady’s bonnet
leaning out of his
pocket hints at
infidelity.His wife’s
got hers!!
• The beauty patch
on his neck covers
a syphilitic sore.
Earl Squander
squanders his
passion on
prostitutes.
The Orgy (from A Rake’s Progress)
Marriage à la Mode - The Lady’s Death
 Hogarth – An Election
• The subject-matter • Mounting a campaign
deserves some was an expensive
attention.The source enterprise, so mobilizing
of inspiration was the votes through bribery a
notorious contest for direct result.
the town and country • Since 1714 the Tories
parliamentary seats had long been eclipsed
in Oxfordshire by the Whigs, who cast
during the General their opponents as
Election of 1754, “Jacobites”, the
where the followers of Bonnie
manipulation of the Prince Charlie, James
electorate through II’s grandson, and so
propaganda and catholic sympathizers,
bribery was a usual with the accusation of
practice, a being “Popery”.
commomplace
 An Election
• The Whigs • The Tory-candidates
themselves were split were Sir J.Dashwood
in two parts. The and Lord Wenman
majority were called of Thane. The Whig-
the Court-Party, opponents were Lord
while some of the Parker and sir
dissenters joined the Edward Turner, an
Tories. In one word, ambitious squire and
the situation was hot landowner. They
and the election in were both helped by
Oxfordshire was a the powerful 3rd
major topic for Duke of
newspapers and Marlborough, Lord
pamphlets. C.Spenser.
 An Election
• The political • The election series is
part of a long tradition
campaign was not
of political satire on the
confined to speeches theme of the vices
and pamphleteering, attendant on rural
but included the election campaigns.
provision of Hogarth’s series was also
‘treats’(gifts) for inspired by the poem
“The Humours of a
prospective electors:
Country Election”, which
• Dinners, came out in 1741.The
entertainments, unruly mods,the writer’s
wine,venison, invitation to the Inn to
alcohol… attend a treat…
An Election-Entertainment • Despite the
facts that
occured in
1754, the
backgrounds
in Hogarth’s
series are
generic. His
work must
be intended,
actually, as a
satire on
HUMAN
FOLLY.
 The compositions are carefully worked out. Hogarth
showed the distortions and abuses of human nature, the
atmosphere of corruption and degeneration of vices.In
this case landscapes and townscapes sorround the action
rather than being a simple backdrop. The Polling (from an
Election)
An Election • The pictures shows
a polling booth in
the foreground and
an atmospheric
landscapein the
background. The
Whig candidate
looks calm and
relaxed, while the
Tory opponent is
worried.between
them the constable
has fallen
asleep.On the very
right a caricaturist
is causing some
amusement by
making a funny
portrait
• A motley group of
voters are making
their way up the
steps.Right- a soldier is
voting for the 1st time,
but he has no hands
and has lost a leg, as
well, so he can’t lay his
hand on the bible to
take his oath so he
risks being
disenfranchised. Here,
lawyers are disputing
about the matter.At
the centre probably an
idiot is about to
register his vote, while
a man wearing fetters
is giving some
instructions.
• Behind them on the
flight of stairs a grey-
faced man wrapped in
a blanket is being
carried up to record
his vote, followed by a
blind man and a
hunchback.
• On the left,
Britannia’s coach
with the Union flag
of Scotland and
England has broken
down, while the
horses are plunging
about wildly. The
coachmen don’t
seem to care and
they are engrossed
in a game of cards,
where one of them
seems to cheat.The
lady’s attempts to
attract their
attention remain
unheard.
• In the background
on the stone bridge
is a scene of chaos
as those arriving to
vote meet those who
are leaving.
An Election- Chairing the Member
 Henry Fielding 1707-1754
• Unlike Defoe Fielding came
from an upper-class country
family.
• He got a very good schooling
at Eton College.
• He stopped his studies to move
to London and earn his living
as a playwright, but his
carreer in the theatre soon
vanished because of the
Licencing Act in 1737.
• He next turned to Law and
became Justice of the Peace in
London where he did his best
to stop corruption and
improve order in the law
courts. Here is the
frontispiece-portrait engraved
by Hogarth, his best friend.
 H. Fielding’s life
• Fielding’s private life
was quite difficult.
• He lived through times
of real poverty and in his
thirties he started
suffering bad health.
• However he was able to
devote himself to writing
novels in his periods of
ill-health.
• He died on a voyage of
convalescence to
Portugal
 H.Fielding
• As a playwright he wrote • However, his best
brilliant satires which literary achievement was
attacked the vices and shown in his
corruption of Walpole’s entertaining and
government. humorous novels.
• He turned out over 20 • He wrote a burlesque
burlesque pieces,almost version of Richardson’s
all of them were novel Pamela and gave
censored. the title SHAMELA,
• His most famous one was where “sham”means
Tom Thumb,a farce someone false and
making fun of the deceitful.
grandiose tragedies so • With JOSEPH
fashionable in his times. ANDREWS, Fielding
found the form that
suited him.
 H.Fielding
• Joseph Andrews
• Plot : Joseph is a stable boy
and is in love with a milkmaid
called Fanny. They are both
humble and poor but good-
hearted. Joseph’s employer
Lady Booby persecute them,
so they have to travel around
the country helped by parson
Adams. After many
adventures and unexpected
incidents Joseph and Fanny
will find out that they actually
belong to the gentry and not
to humble families, so they
can marry and be happy and
richer.
• As suggested by Fielding
himself the novel is a
“COMIC ROMANCE”,
rich in humour but also
with an important moral
teaching: to expose vice
and hypocrisy of the
upper-classes.
• Fielding intended his
novel as a picaresque
novel and in this he owed
much to the Spanish
PICARESQUE
TRADITION.
H.Fielding
• The Picar
• The figure of the
Picar dates back to
the Spanish Tradition
of the 16th -17th
century with authors
like Quevedo and
Cervantes. The Picar
is actually a foundling
who doesn’t know
anything about his
parents. He is
compelled to face up
several unfortunate
incidents through
several adventures.
However, in the end
he will succeed thanks
to his good nature
and his honesty.
H Fielding
• Undoubtedly, Fielding’s
masterpiece is the novel Tom
Jones .
• It is a very long novel(18
books!!)and it deals with a
young couple of lovers (Tom
and Sophia)who are unjustly
persecuted. Tom is endowed
with the best human and
moral virtues: honest, open-
hearted, courageous and
generous, but he lives in a
world of foes,corrupted and
deceitful.In the novel there
are several characters and
incidents which make the plot
complex but also highly
entertaining.
 Tom Jones
• Why such a long novel ?? • injustices and abuses
• Fielding intended his were all vices that
novel as a long epic Fielding tried to
novel set in his own unmask and
times so as to give a punish.Instead,
realistic fresco of Tom’s
18th century society, openheartedness and
but without spontaneity is the
forgetting the deep only antidote, and for
moral teaching of his this he will be
work. rewarded.
Corruption,dull
social conventions,
hypocrisy,falsehood,
 Tom Jones
• Fielding peopled his
novel with a lot of
different human
types, easily grouped
in those who are
naturally inclined to
goodness and truth
and those who
aren’t.Appearances
are hardly ever true
and are unnecessary
to become a balanced
loving person.
 Tom Jones
• Fielding opens each
chapter with an
introduction to the
theme and literary
ideas like in the great
epics. Unlike Defoe
he refused to exhalt
individualism. He
displays throughout
the whole novel a 3rd
person omniscent
narrator so as to
manipulate incidents
like in great epics.
 H.Fielding
• Why was Fielding important?
• He was detested by Dr.Johnson and by some of
his contemporaries. However, Fielding gave a
new more complex role to the figure of the
narrator. As one of the founders of the novel,
he developed and sorted out a more
complicated plot, full of characters, where he
could balance indivudual features of the
characters with a more general perspective and
so giving a richer contextualization.