18th century British Painting

In the 18th century, English painting finally developed a distinct style and tradition again, still concentrating on portraits and landscapes, but also attempting, without much success, to find an approach to history of painting. Portraits were, as elsewhere in Europe, much the most easiest and most profitable way for an artist to make a living, and the English tradition continued to draw of the relaxed elegance of the portrait style developed in England by Van Dyck, although there was little actual transmission from his work via his workshop. Leading portraitists were Thomas Gainsborough Sir Joshua Reynolds George Romney Sir Thomas Lawrence Joseph Wright of Derby George Stubs

The English portraitists started to be admired abroad, and the artists had largely ceased to look for inspiration abroad. Thomas Gainsborough (1727 1788): British portrait and landscape painter When he moved in 1774 to London he again began to exhibit his paintings at the Royal Academy, including portraits of contemporary celebrities, such as the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland After having painted the portrait of King George III and his queen in 1780, he started to receive many royal commissions. This gave him some influence with the Academy and allowed him to dictate the manner in which he wished his work to be exhibited In 1784, the King gave the job to Gainsborough's rival and Academy president, Joshua Reynolds. Gainsborough remained the Royal Family's favorite painter, however Gainsborough was noted for the speed with which he applied his paint, and he worked more from his observations of nature (and of human nature) than from any application of formal academic rules.

Most famous works, such as

Portrait of Mrs. Graham;

Mary and Margaret: The Painter's Daughters; William Hallett and His Wife Elizabeth, nee Stephen, The Morning Walk; Cottage Girl with Dog and Pitcher

Portrait of Mrs. Graham

Lady in Blue (c. 1770)

The morning walk

Cottage Girl with Dog and Pitcher

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 1792)

Sir Joshua Reynolds: self portrait

one of ten (maybe eleven) children in the family of a village school-master restricted to a formal education provided by his father he exhibited a natural curiosity made extracts into his commonplace book from Theophrastus, Plutarch, Seneca, Marcus Antonius, Ovid, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Alexander Pope, John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Aphra Behn and passages on art theory by Leonardo da Vinci, etc The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardson's An Essay on the Theory of Painting (1715). Reynolds annotated copy was lost for nearly two hundred years when it appeared in a Cambridge bookshop, inscribed with the signature J. Reynolds Pictor. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style".

whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered a severe cold which left him partially deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life, he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits On 10 August 1784 Allan Ramsey died and the office of Principal painter in ordinary to the King therefore became vacant. Gainsborough felt that he had a good chance of securing it but Reynolds felt that he deserved it and threatened to resign the presidency of the Royal Academy if he did not receive it. In 1788 Reynolds painted the portrait of Lord Heathfield who became a national hero for his successful defense of Gibraltar during its Great Siege from 1779 to 1783 against he combined forces of France and Spain one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Arts, founder of the Society of Artists, with Gainsborough, established the Royal Academy of Arts as a spinoff organisation. In 1768 he was made the RA's first President, a position he held until his death. As a lecturer, Reynolds' Discourses on Art (delivered between 1769 and 1790) are remembered for their sensitivity and perception. In one of these lectures he was of the opinion that "invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory."

Lord Heathfield

Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann

A literary party at Sir Joshua Reynolds's'

Gilbert Stuart: Reynolds 1784

George Romney (

1734 1802)

- born in Beckside, Lancashire (now part of Cumbria), the 3rd son (of 11 children) of John Romney, cabinet maker - natural ability for drawing and making things from wood including violins (which he played throughout his life) - from the age of 15, he was taught art informally by a local watchmaker - his studies began in earnest in 1755, at the age of 21, for a 4year apprenticeship with local artist Christopher Steele - In 1763, Romney entered his painting, "The Death of General Wolfe", into a Royal Society of Arts competition - despite his later success, Romney was never invited to join the Royal Academy (formed 1768), though he was asked, urged even, to exhibit there - 1769 he broke through with the exhibition of the large portrait of Sir George Waren and family at the Free Society of Artists, which was greatly admired and helped to lay the foundations of his future popularity - He traveled to France and Italy to study the old masters - 1782 he was introduced to Emma Hamilton (then called Emma Hart) who became his muse. He painted over 60 portraits of her in various poses, sometimes playing the part of historical or mythological figures - In the summer of 1799, his health broken, and after an absence of almost forty years, Romney returned to his wife, Mary. She nursed him during the remaining 2 years of his life until he died in November 1802. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary's Parish Church, Dalton-in-Furness

Emma Hamilton as a bacchante

Lady Hamilton as Circe (c. 1782)

Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769 1830) - a child prodigy in the family of an innkeeper - at the age of ten he was supporting his family with his pastel portraits - at eighteen he went to London and soon established his reputation as a portrait painter in oil - he receives his first royal commission for the portrait of Queen Charlotte in 1790 - he stayed at the top of his profession until his death, aged 60, in 1830 - a brilliant draughtsman and known for his gift of capturing a likeness, as well as his virtuoso handling of paint - became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1791, a full member in 1794, and president in 1820 - he is particularly remembered as the Romantic portraitist of the Regency - in spite of his success, he spent most of life deep in debt; he never married

Sir Thomas Lawrence: Queen Charlotte

Sir Thomas Lawrence: George IV coronation

Sir Thomas Lawrence: Duke of Wellington -

Lawrence's reputation as an artist fell during the Victorian era; critic and artist Roger Fry restored it in the 1930s, when he described Lawrence as having a "consummate mastery over the means of artistic expression" with an "unerring hand and eye". Sir Michael Levey: "He was a highly original artist, quite unexpected on the English scene: self-taught, self-absorbed in perfecting his own personal style, and in effect self-destructing, since he left behind no significant followers or creative influence.

Joseph Wright of Derby (1734 1797)

English landscape and portrait painter acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial revolution

- notable for his use of chiaroscuro effect, which emphasizes the contrast of light and dark, and paintings of candle-lit subjects paintings of the birth of science out of alchemy, often based on the meetings of the lunar Society (a group of very influential scientists and industrialists that significantly struggled for science against religious values in the period known as the Age of enlightenment

Wright went to London in 1751 and for two years studied under a highly reputed portraitist, Thomas Hudson, the master of Joshua Reynolds

o in 1753 he returned to and settled in Derby and varied his work in portraiture o visited Italy where he remained till 1775; he witnessed an eruption of Mount Vezuvius, which formed the subject of many of his subsequent paintings o Wright was a frequent contributor to the exhibitions of the Society of Artists, and to those of the Royal Academy He pioneered industrialisation together with
- Richard Arkwright - the creator of the factory system in the

cotton industry; - William Tate, the uncle to the eccentric gentleman tunneler Joseph - Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) from the Lunar Society which brought together leading industrialists, scientists, and philosophers - James Ferguson (17101776) who undertook a series of lectures based on his book Lectures on Select Subjects in Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Optics &c. (1760 His factual paintings have metaphorical meaning the bursting into light of the phosphorus in front of a praying figure signify the problematic transition from faith to scientific understanding and enlightenment, - the various expressions on the figures around the bird in the air pump indicates concern over the possible inhumanity of the coming age of science - a high point in scientific enquiry which began undermining the power of religion in Western societies
-

The Alchemist in Search of the Philosopher's Stone, (Joseph Wright, 1771)

Cave at evening, by Joseph Wright, 1774

Joseph Wright of Derby, exhibited 1766: A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery (An orrery is a mechanical planetarium depicting the movements of the planets in the solar system, with a light in the center representing the sun. In Wrights time, philosopher was a term indicating a scientist)

Joseph Wright of Derby (1768) An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump) A bird, in the glass bowl in the upper center of the image, is used to demonstrate the air pump visible on the table. The man conducting the experiment has pumped the air out of the bowl, threatening the birds life and inspiring a range of emotions from the audience

An Iron Forge (Joseph Wright of Derby, 1772) This work, painted after The Blacksmiths Shop, shows a more mechanized process, with a hammer doing the work as the smith stands in the background, arms folded

The Hermit Studying Anatomy (Joseph Wright of Derby, 1771 1773). Considered to be a companion to The Alchymist, the painting depicts another night scene of an old man engaged in a form of scientific research

George Stubbs (1724 1806)

George Stubbs: A self portrait - born in Liverpool, the son of a currier and leather merchant - worked at his father's trade until he was 15 or 16, and after his father's death in 1741 was briefly apprenticed to a Lancashire painter and engraver - self-taught. In the 1740s he worked as a portrait painter in the North of England - passion for anatomy (and spent 18 months dissecting horses and in 1766 published The anatomy of the Horse. The original drawings are now in the collection of the Royal Academy) - In 1759 the 3rd Duke of Richmond commissioned three large pictures from him, and his career was soon

Mares and Foals in a Landscape

James Abbott Whistler is born on 11 July in Lowell, Massachusetts

Portrait of Whistler with Hat (1858), Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

American artist, wit and society figure, who lived for most of his life in London and Paris. He trained as an artist in Paris in the studio of Charles Gleyre [link Key figures] but his early work was inspired by the paintings of the Realist painter Gustave Courbet and by the work of older masters such as Velzquez, Rembrandt, and Thomas Gainsborough. Later he absorbed the influences of Japanese and classical art to create works that were decorative and virtually subjectless. He was one of the central figures in the Aesthetic Movement. He was a man who liked to live his life in the public eye and was very concerned about his personal appearance and the critical reception of his paintings. Whistler's early paintings were Realist in style, that is, they were concerned with portraying modern life with all its liveliness, colour and bustle, as well as its dirt, poverty and hardship. These early Realist works were made in reaction to those painters and critics who thought that art should only deal with noble subjects and idealized figures. In this he was greatly influenced by the work of the French Realist painter Gustave Courbet.

Symphony in White, No. 1, also known as The White Girl. The work shows a woman in full figure standing on a wolf skin in front of a white curtain with a lily in her hand.

Decorative Painting

In the 1860s, influenced by art of the Far East and classical sculpture, Whistler developed a new decorative art. The pale colours, graceful forms and elegant flowing drapery were inspired by classical art. Whistlers friend, the painter Albert Moore was partly responsible for Whistlers new interest in classical art. Moore is famous for his paintings of women dressed in flowing classical robes, in poses based on classical sculpture. The geometric patterned backgrounds, lack of perspective, flat colour and exotic accessories of Whistlers paintings were drawn from Japanese prints, for example in Variations in Flesh Color and Green: The Balcony. Moore also drew from Japanese sources in his decorative paintings of the late 1860s, largely due to Whistlers influence.

Japanese Art
In the 1860s European artists were getting excited about Japanese coloured woodblock prints that were beginning to come into the country along with items such as Far Eastern fans, kimonos and porcelain. Whistler was among the first artists to place oriental objects in his paintings, as in for example La Princesse du Pays de la porcelain. In the 1870s Whistler gained a deeper understanding of Japanese methods of design, which were very different to those taught in the art schools of Europe. In response his paintings became more simplified and decorative like Japanese art. In his Nocturnes he turned his back on Western techniques for representing perspective, so that his paintings look radically flat and almost abstract. Japanese art would have had an obvious appeal to an artist like Whistler, who liked to challenge established European views about art.

Music

Whistler began to call his paintings after musical terms, for example Symphonies, Arrangements, Harmonies, Nocturnes, Variations and Notes, to emphasize that he did not want to imitate nature, whether in his landscapes, portraits or figure studies. His paintings were not about subject matter but beauty. They were to be evocative like music. Whistler declared: "As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of colour."

Arrangement in Pink, Red and Purple, 18831884, Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Nocturne: Blue and Gold Old Battersea Bridge

Colour
Whistler believed that colour should be "embroidered" on the canvas. By this he meant that the same colours should reappear throughout the picture in order to give a sense of harmony and patterning to the whole. The surface of the picture was often more important than the subject. Influenced by the Velasquez, Whistler used a limited range of colors, that give his work a quiet elegance and showed a great display of skill.

Alfred Sisley (October 30, 1839 - January 29, 1899) was an English Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France. Sisley is recognized as perhaps the most consistent of the Impressionists, never deviating into figure painting or finding that the movement did not fulfill his artistic needs. Sisley was born in Paris to affluent English parents; William Sisley was in the silk business, and his mother Felicia Sell was a cultivated music connoisseur. At the age of 18, Sisley was sent to London to study for a career in business, but he abandoned it after four years and returned to Paris.

The Moret Bridge in the Sunlight

Banks of the Loing at Saint-Mammes

On the Cliffs, Langland Bay, Wales

A Forest Clearing

A Path in Louveciennes