Ressource pédagogique : The many peopled wall: Fancy Pictures and Annual Exhibitions in Eighteenth-Century London / John Chu

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The many peopled wall: Fancy Pictures and Annual Exhibitions in Eighteenth-Century London / John Chu, in colloque international organisé, sous la responsabilité scientifique de Muriel Adrien, Melissa Percival et Axel Hémery, par l’Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès et l’Université d’Exeter. Toulouse, Musée Paul-Dupuy, 3-4 décembre 2015. One of the defining developments of metropolitan visual culture in the eighteenth century was the advent of regular exhibitions of art presenting large numbers of pictures for perusal by a leisured public. This paper explores the impact of this burgeoning exhibiting culture on the art of the English fancy picture. Through a close reading of three fancy pictures exhibited in a single year soon after the establishment of such showcases in London, an account is provided of the ways in which painters on this format responded to the challenges and opportunities of this new situation. One of these works, namely Joseph Wright of Derby’s Lecture on the Orrery (Derby Museum and Art Gallery), is extremely well known while the other two – Nathaniel Hone’s Boy deliberating on his drawing (Ulster Museum) and Henry Morland’s Lady reading by a lampshade (Yale Center for British Art) – will be unfamiliar to many. Visual comparison and contrast between these art works and analysis of associated documentation will provide answers to a series of interconnected questions. What, for example, prompted artists to turn to this art form in these highly competitive circumstances in the first place? How were the public encouraged to distinguish fancy pictures from other closely related art forms? And what link can be made between the thematic and stylistic departures taken by the English fancy picture at this date and these vibrant but unpredictable new forums for artistic appreciation and entertainment?

"Domaine(s)" et indice(s) Dewey

• Art de 1700 à 1799 (XVIIIe siècle) (709.033)
• Histoire de la peinture dans les Îles britanniques et en Angleterre (peintres anglais) (759.2)

Thème(s)