18th Century- The Age Of Reason

English art at last became robustly independent, with great achievements in portraiture and landscape, caricature and narrative painting...

The marriage settlement.	The tete a tete. Cynicism and boredom overcome the young couple
1745 AD. William Hogarth. Marriage a la mode:

A new social realism was creeping into some of the art of the time as seen in William Hogarth’s original and striking narrative paintings which lampooned the pretentions of the upper classes, exposing their materialistic attitudes and lack of feeling. His expressive portraits earned him an international reputation. On the other hand portraits of the landed gentry were catered for by an artist from rural Suffolk in the person of Thomas Gainsborough who showed a class of Yeoman turned genteel as they benefitted from the great strides forward in farming thanks to the agricultural revolution which increased yields as never before.

1750 AD. Thomas Gainsborough. Mr and Mrs Andrews.

This quintessentially English painting follows the fashionable convention of the conversation piece, usually a small-scale portrait showing two or more people, often out of doors. The emphasis on the landscape here allows Gainsborough to display his skills as a painter of convincingly changing weather and naturalistic scenery, still a novelty at this time.

George Stubbs was a simple man whose work appealed to the sporting and hunting country gentry. Stubbs made a name for himself as he took commissions for paintings of expensive racehorses from his sporting and racing patrons included many of the noblemen who founded the Jockey Club. Like Gainsborough, he later painted scenes of peasant life, as well as studies of wild and exotic animals. He also became known as a printmaker and for his paintings in enamel on Wedgwood earthenware plaques.

His anatomical studies of horses show his devotion for this animal which he reveals in the exquisite detail of their individual features which make every picture of each thoroughbred an animal portrait.

Joseph Wright of Derby was a painter from the English Midlands whose interest in the scientific discoveries of the age were captured in paintings using the dramatic lighting given by artificial light, the flames of foundries and blast furnaces.

1764-1766 AD. Joseph Wright: A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery

His handling of artificial and intense lighting made him stand out from the other artists around him who tended to favour less ‘modern‘ subjects.

Joseph Wright on the contrary, was fascinated by the scenes around him in which the future was being built in front of his eyes.

The potteries were producing new manufacturing methods at Josiah Wedgewood’s workshop using the artist John Flaxman’s designs, new ideas for iron constructions were being developed, glass furnaces were turning out the recently invented flint and lead glass products for the homes of the middle classes. The ‘cottage’ industries were becoming manufactories. All of this Joseph Wright captured in paintings as the most important witness to the drama of the industrial revolution.

He also showed the various experiments being popularised by the scientists of the age.

At the other end of the creative spectrum, George Stubbs was painting sporting and racing pictures which show a simplicity which belies his delicate colouring and strong linear composition.

1774 George Stubbs. “Euston” the dappled grey racehorse.
David Garrick 1775 AD. Sir Joshua Reynolds.	Samuel Johnson

With the greater interest in revealing the character of the subject, portraiture was transformed by two outstanding figures, Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Both brought a new subtlety and refinement to portraits, their images an expression of the wealth and confidence of English society.

The Royal Academy was founded in 1768, and as its first president Reynolds promoted a fashionable neo-classicism based on art of the Italian High Renaissance. Other important portraitists were Thomas Lawrence, George Romney, and John Hoppner. Who were painters of portraits and ‘conversation pieces’. The poet and etcher William Blake was a unique figure, fashioning his own highly individual style to express a complex personal mythology. His visionary creations, among the first powerful expressions of Romanticism, briefly inspired Samuel Palmer, who brought a strong note of mysticism to landscape painting. The nightmarish visions of Henry Fuseli reveal a darker strain of Romanticism.

1794 AD. William Blake: The ancient of days. Line, illumination, narrative, symbology. The quintessence of the English style

1795 AD. William Blake. Abel Egg Tempera on paper

Once again we witness the importance of line, the narrative to the painting and its complex imagery. Here we have modernity yet a strong connection to the earliest illuminated manuscripts.

William Blake holds a special place of affection in the hearts of many as a poet and outspoken nationalist who believed in an England where the world of the spirit would oust the materialism offered by the image of the ‘dark Satanic mills’ and industrialisation. His poem ‘Jerusalem’ appeals to the spiritual side of the English nation and is often used as its national anthem.

Caricature a new English invention flourished in the second half of the century, its leading practitioners, sometimes earthy, erotic or bitingly satirical, being James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson, and Hogarth. Their favourite targets were the Georgian court, the follies and evils of society, and, during the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon.

Thomas Rowlandson. Portsmouth Point - social commentary.

Here Rowlandson’s relaxed pen work describes a lively scene of ships crews on shore leave entertaining themselves in one of the town’s more dubious areas.

Neoclassical Sculpture

At the very end of the century John Flaxman became the leading exponent of neoclassical sculpture.

1808 AD. John Flaxman. Lord Nelson. St Paul’s Cathedral London.