Book contents
- Percy Shelley in Context
- Percy Shelley in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Part I Life and Death
- Part II Intellectual, Cultural, and Political Contexts
- Chapter 7 Ancient Philosophy
- Chapter 8 Ancient Poetry
- Chapter 9 English Literature to 1792
- Chapter 10 European Literature, Dante to Rousseau
- Chapter 11 The Visual and Plastic Arts
- Chapter 12 The Radical Press
- Chapter 13 Shelley and the Lake Poets
- Chapter 14 Mary Shelley
- Chapter 15 Thomas Love Peacock
- Chapter 16 Byron and Shelley
- Chapter 17 Keats and Shelley
- Chapter 18 Revolution and Reform
- Chapter 19 Political Economy
- Chapter 20 Empire
- Chapter 21 Shelley’s Sexless Sexuality
- Chapter 22 The British Empiricists
- Chapter 23 The Sciences
- Chapter 24 Religion
- Part III Writings
- Part IV Afterlives
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 11 - The Visual and Plastic Arts
from Part II - Intellectual, Cultural, and Political Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 April 2025
- Percy Shelley in Context
- Percy Shelley in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Part I Life and Death
- Part II Intellectual, Cultural, and Political Contexts
- Chapter 7 Ancient Philosophy
- Chapter 8 Ancient Poetry
- Chapter 9 English Literature to 1792
- Chapter 10 European Literature, Dante to Rousseau
- Chapter 11 The Visual and Plastic Arts
- Chapter 12 The Radical Press
- Chapter 13 Shelley and the Lake Poets
- Chapter 14 Mary Shelley
- Chapter 15 Thomas Love Peacock
- Chapter 16 Byron and Shelley
- Chapter 17 Keats and Shelley
- Chapter 18 Revolution and Reform
- Chapter 19 Political Economy
- Chapter 20 Empire
- Chapter 21 Shelley’s Sexless Sexuality
- Chapter 22 The British Empiricists
- Chapter 23 The Sciences
- Chapter 24 Religion
- Part III Writings
- Part IV Afterlives
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
Percy Shelley’s interest in the visual arts (painting and sculpture, but also monuments and landscapes) was much heightened by the years spent in Italy, where in letters and notebooks, he records a wide range of encounters and sharpened his powers of observation, perception, and description. This chapter presents several important contexts and instances, from accounts in his letters to Thomas Love Peacock of the paintings in Bologna that particularly moved him (such as Raphael’s St. Cecilia), to his ekphrastic verses on a painting of the head of Medusa, to his wide-ranging descriptive notes on sculptures in Rome and in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. These are situated historically in terms of increased access to, and engagement with, the visual arts in the period, and as important sites for Shelley to work through the imaginative transmutation of the visual into the visionary in his own poetry and poetic theory.
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- Percy Shelley in Context , pp. 82 - 90Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025