Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Preface
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Part I Life and works
- Part II Critical fortunes
- Part III Contexts
- Chapter 10 America
- Chapter 11 Anglicanism
- Chapter 12 Anthropology
- Chapter 13 Authorship
- Chapter 14 Biography
- Chapter 15 Book trade
- Chapter 16 Clubs
- Chapter 17 Conversation
- Chapter 18 Dictionaries
- Chapter 19 Domestic life
- Chapter 20 Education
- Chapter 21 Empire
- Chapter 22 Essays
- Chapter 23 Fiction
- Chapter 24 History
- Chapter 25 Journalism
- Chapter 26 Law
- Chapter 27 Literary criticism
- Chapter 28 London
- Chapter 29 Medicine
- Chapter 30 Mental health
- Chapter 31 Money
- Chapter 32 Nationalism
- Chapter 33 Philosophy
- Chapter 34 Poetry
- Chapter 35 Politics
- Chapter 36 Scholarship
- Chapter 37 Science and technology
- Chapter 38 Scotland
- Chapter 39 Sermons
- Chapter 40 Shakespeare
- Chapter 41 Slavery and abolition
- Chapter 42 Social hierarchy
- Chapter 43 Theatre
- Chapter 44 Travel
- Chapter 45 Visual arts
- Chapter 46 War
- Chapter 47 Women writers
- Further reading
- Index
Chapter 45 - Visual arts
from Part III - Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Preface
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Part I Life and works
- Part II Critical fortunes
- Part III Contexts
- Chapter 10 America
- Chapter 11 Anglicanism
- Chapter 12 Anthropology
- Chapter 13 Authorship
- Chapter 14 Biography
- Chapter 15 Book trade
- Chapter 16 Clubs
- Chapter 17 Conversation
- Chapter 18 Dictionaries
- Chapter 19 Domestic life
- Chapter 20 Education
- Chapter 21 Empire
- Chapter 22 Essays
- Chapter 23 Fiction
- Chapter 24 History
- Chapter 25 Journalism
- Chapter 26 Law
- Chapter 27 Literary criticism
- Chapter 28 London
- Chapter 29 Medicine
- Chapter 30 Mental health
- Chapter 31 Money
- Chapter 32 Nationalism
- Chapter 33 Philosophy
- Chapter 34 Poetry
- Chapter 35 Politics
- Chapter 36 Scholarship
- Chapter 37 Science and technology
- Chapter 38 Scotland
- Chapter 39 Sermons
- Chapter 40 Shakespeare
- Chapter 41 Slavery and abolition
- Chapter 42 Social hierarchy
- Chapter 43 Theatre
- Chapter 44 Travel
- Chapter 45 Visual arts
- Chapter 46 War
- Chapter 47 Women writers
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
Pai′nter. n.s. [peintre, Fr. from paint.] One who professes the art of representing objects by colours.
Beauty is only that which makes all things as they are in their proper and perfect nature; which the best painters always chuse by contemplating the forms of each. Dryden.
London was the crucible of the visual arts in eighteenth-century Britain. In order to succeed financially and socially, artists needed a foothold in the capital. Even so, the precise locus for success in the metropolis was undergoing fundamental change by the 1730s, when Johnson himself settled in the city. A generation earlier, the most successful and sought-after artists were those whose circles of patronage were centered on the court. They included, notably, Sir Godfrey Kneller, the German-born portraitist and history painter, who, from 1691 until his death, held the post of Principal Painter to the King. For the most part, those who prospered in the early decades of the eighteenth century were Continental artists, such as Louis Laguerre and Jacopo Amigoni, who were skilled in painting allegorical murals in the Baroque style for the palaces and mansions of the royalty and leading aristocracy. An exception was the Englishman James Thornhill, who by his death in 1734 had assumed the mantle of Britain’s leading decorative painter. Even so, at this very time the taste for the Baroque was in decline. Nor was King George II interested in patronizing the visual arts, stating, memorably, that he had no use for “bainting or boetry.” In such unpropitious circumstances, it was Thornhill’s son-in-law, William Hogarth, who pioneered a new and very different art form. It is fair to state that Samuel Johnson’s arrival in London in the late 1730s coincided with the rise of Hogarth to a position of preeminence in the capital’s art world.
Hogarth
During the 1730s, Hogarth, who had been trained as an engraver, began to produce a highly original and influential series of artworks that he called “modern moral subjects.” The first of these, The Harlot’s Progress (1732), was followed three years later by The Rake’s Progress, a series of eight paintings (now in Sir John Soane’s Museum, London) which Hogarth disseminated widely in the form of engravings – inexpensive black-and-white prints that made paintings available to a wide public. In these and similar works, Hogarth wished to produce a form of modern history painting which would address contemporary manners and mores, issues of social injustice, and political corruption. Hogarth also tackled mainstream subjects, based on the works of English writers, notably Milton and Shakespeare, in order to promote British history painting and the indigenous literary tradition. At the same time, Hogarth’s promotion of a consciously modern and Anglophile art did not mean that he ignored the art of Continental Old Master painters. Rather, as he affirmed, it was the snobbish taste of collectors and connoisseurs that he disdained.
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- Information
- Samuel Johnson in Context , pp. 385 - 392Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011