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Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
BOOKPainting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
David H. Solkin
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31850
A distinctly modern art world emerged in eighteenth-century England. The period witnessed the establishment of the first public spaces for the display of works of art, widespread discussion of artistic issues, and the rise of an art market responsive to the tastes of a large and diverse audience. In his discussion of these phenomena, David H. Solkin shows how major developments in English painting went hand in hand with rapid economic expansion, and how the sudden light of public exposure transformed pictorial theory and practice.

The book opens by examining the attempts by artists in the early eighteenth century to represent commercial prosperity as a source of moral as well as material well-being. By the 1730s these efforts had borne fruit in an innovative imagery of polite conversation, which in turn laid the foundations for a new kind of public art designed specifically for a middle-class audience. Solkin reveals how market forces soon changed the traditional subject matter of historical painting into something less high-minded and more popular, as artists abandoned the idealized depiction of classical narratives in favor of creating detailed portrayals of contemporary British themes. At the same time, the image of the hero moved away from a character of stern and stoic masculinity toward a new paragon of sensibility and benevolence, designed to appeal to a non-heroic audience. The founding of the Royal Academy in 1768 heralded an attempt to reassert the more exclusive standards of the past, but this did not check the growth of a new genre of painting with its own inner dynamic, meaning, and ambition.

Generously illustrated, including many new color images, and written in a lively style, the book is compulsory reading for anyone interested in eighteenth-century British art, culture, and social history.

*This eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal.*
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Print publication date May 1993 (out of print)
Print ISBN 9780300057416
EISBN 9780300278583
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Illustrations 88
Print Status out of print
Publisher (out of print)
WorldCat
Google Books

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List of illustrations

  • Maurice Ashley-Cooper; Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
  • Orestes and Pylades or The San Ildefonso Group
  • Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
  • Joseph Addison
  • Sir Richard Steele
  • Unknown Gentleman
  • Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne; Henry Clinton, 7th Earl of Lincoln
  • Andrew Quicke in Conversation with the 1st Earl of Godolphin, Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele, and the Artist
  • Andrew Quicke in Conversation with the 1st Earl of Godolphin, Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele, and the Artist, detail
  • Brothel Scene
  • Tavern Scene
  • A Company at Table
  • A Musical Assembly
  • An Elegant Company on a Terrace
  • A Sportsman and a Man of Fashion in a Park
  • Frontispiece of Shaftesbury's A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgement of Hercules
  • An English Family at Tea
  • The Tea-Table
  • A Conversation in a Park
  • The Belton Conversation Piece
  • A Rake's Progress, Plate 3
  • A Rake's Progress, Plate 6
  • A Midnight Modern Conversation
  • The Gaming Table
  • The Wollaston Family
  • The Jones Family Conversation Piece
  • The Basset-Table. A Comedy, frontispiece
  • Tea Party at Lord Harrington's House, St. James's
  • A Conversation of Virtuosis…at the Kings Arms
  • Sir Thomas Samwell and his friends
  • The Limerick Hell Fire Club
  • A Nobleman's Levee
  • A General Prospect of Vaux Hall Gardens
  • George Frederick Handel
  • Southwark Fair
  • The Adieu to the Spring-Gardens, head-piece
  • Spring Gardens, Vaux-Hall
  • Vaux Hall
  • Rural Beauty, or Vaux-hal Garden
  • The Grove at Vauxhall Gardens, The Vauxhall Fan
  • The Prince of Wales's Pavilion, The Vauxhall Fan
  • A View of the Temple of Comus &c. in Vauxhall Gardens
  • A View of the Centre Cross Walk &c. in Vauxhall Gardens
  • The Triumphal Arches, Mr Handels Statue &c. in the South Walk of Vauxhall Gardens
  • Vauxhall Gardens: the Grand Walk
  • The Milkmaid's Garland, or Humours of May Day
  • Country Dances Round a Maypole
  • The Play of Skittles (The Enraged Vixen of a Wife)
  • The Wapping Landlady, and the Tars who are just Come Ashore
  • Madamoiselle Catherina
  • The Fortune Teller, or Casting the Coffee Grounds
  • See-Saw
  • The Play Scene from Hamlet
  • Henry V at Agincourt
  • A Prospective View of the Foundling Hospital, with Emblematic Figures (I)
  • A Prospective View of the Foundling Hospital, with Emblematic Figures (II)
  • The General Court Room of the Foundling Hospital
  • Moses Brought Before Pharaoh's Daughter
  • The Finding of Infant Moses in the Bullrushes
  • Hagar and Ishmael
  • Little Children Brought to Christ
  • The Foundling Hospital
  • The Genius of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture Relieving the Distressed
  • Angelica and Medoro
  • Venus and Cupid
  • Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus
  • The Inside of the Elegant Music Room in Vaux Hall Gardens
  • The Triumph of Britannia
  • Modello for The Surrender of Montreal to General Amherst
  • Robert Clive, Mir Jafar and his son Mir Miran, with a number of British and Mughal attendants, after the Battle of Plassey, 1757
  • Alexander before the Tent of Darius
  • The Marquis of Granby giving Alms to a sick Soldier and his Family
  • David Garrick in The Farmer's Return
  • The Death of General Wolfe
  • The Death of General Wolfe
  • Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight
  • The Sense of Sight
  • A Philosopher Giving That Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp Is Put in Place of the Sun
  • An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump
  • Academy by Lamplight
  • The Cast Room at the Royal Academy
  • A Catalogue of the...Society of Artists of Great-Britain, frontispiece
  • A Catalogue of the...Society of Artists of Great-Britain, tailpiece
  • Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus
  • Dr Oliver and Mr Peirce, the First Physician and Surgeon Examining Patients Afflicted with Paralysis, Rheumatism and Leprosy
  • The Departure of Regulus
  • The Farrier's Shop
  • Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Painting in the Year 1771
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Acknowledgements
David H. Solkin
Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
This book has been about a decade in the making, and without the help of certain individuals it might never have seen the light of day. The steadiest supporter of my project — going back to a time when neither of us had any clear idea of the ultimate form it would take — has been Brian Allen, who has met every request for advice or assistance...
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31852
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Introduction: On Painting, Commerce and the ‘Public’ in Eighteenth-Century Britain
David H. Solkin
Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
Commerce and virtue have rarely been the best of friends. Throughout recorded history western societies have commonly viewed trading practices as a necessary evil, requiring strict vigilance lest the passions stimulated by the pursuit of economic gain...
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.1-26
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31853
Chapter subject tags:Art and society--Britain--History--18th centuryPainting, British--18th centuryConsumer (Economics)--England--18th centuryClosterman, John, 1656-1711 or 1713Portrait painting, British--18th centuryShaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of, 1671-1713

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Chapter 1: Kit-Cats, Commerce, and Conversation
David H. Solkin
Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
For a philosopher-aristocrat to write a few learned volumes celebrating the virtues of politeness is one thing; for an entire propertied class to embrace those virtues as the defining hallmark of its own self-image is something else altogether. Throughout the seventeenth century, a concern for the artful niceties of well-mannered social behaviour had been...
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.27-47
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31854
Chapter subject tags:Kit-Cat Club (London, England)Consumer (Economics)--England--18th centuryPainting, British--18th centuryKneller, Godfrey, Sir, 1646-1723Portrait painting, British--18th centuryArt and society--Britain--History--18th century

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Chapter 2: Conversation at the Crossroads
David H. Solkin
Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
English ideologies of commercial refinement may have achieved a remarkable degree of prominence in a very short period of time, but not without encountering obstacles of quite formidable power. Both...
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.48-77
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31855
Chapter subject tags:Conversation piece (Portrait painting)Art and society--Britain--History--18th centuryAngillis, Pieter, 1685-1734Clothing and dress--Great Britain--18th centuryPortrait painting, British--18th century

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Chapter 3: Hogarth’s Refinement
David H. Solkin
Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
Given the widespread misgivings in early eighteenth-century England about the moral implications of commercial prosperity, the initial reluctance of patrons to have themselves portrayed in circumstances of affluent refinement should hardly strike us as unexpected. But the very fact that the 1720s saw the gradual emergence of an imagery which spoke in...
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.78-105
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31856
Chapter subject tags:Hogarth, William, 1697-1764England--Social life and customs--18th centuryConsumer (Economics)--England--18th centuryConversation piece (Portrait painting)Portrait painting, British--18th centuryArt and society--Britain--History--18th century

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Chapter 4: Vauxhall Gardens; or, The Politics of Pleasure
David H. Solkin
Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
The elevation of the conversation piece from a low form of genre painting into a respectable vehicle for polite group portraiture is only one manifestation of that ‘will to refinement...
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.106-156
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31857
Chapter subject tags:Vauxhall Gardens (London, England)England--Social life and customs--18th centuryArt and society--Britain--History--18th centuryLeisure in art--Great Britain--18th centuryTyers, Jonathan, -1767Painting, British--18th centuryPublic entertainment--Great Britain--18th century

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Chapter 5: Exhibitions of Sympathy
David H. Solkin
Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
By the middle decades of the eighteenth century, it had become patently obvious that the public sphere in Britain had lost any credible resemblance to a classical republic of active and like-minded citizens...
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.157-213
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31858
Chapter subject tags:England--Social life and customs--18th centuryArt and society--Britain--History--18th centuryHumanitarianism--Britain--18th centuryFoundling Hospital (London, England)Hogarth, William, 1697-1764Hayman, Francis, 1708-1776Painting, British--18th centuryShaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of, 1671-1713History painting, British--18th centuryWest, Benjamin, 1738-1820

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Chapter 6: Joseph Wright of Derby and the Power of the Aesthetic
David H. Solkin
Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
‘The Design of moral Pictures,’ George Turnbull wrote of history-painting, ‘is . . . to shew us to ourselves, to reflect our image upon us, in order to attract our Attention the more closely to it, and to engage us in Conversation with ourselves, and an...
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.214-246
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31859
Chapter subject tags:Wright, Joseph, 1734-1797Painting, British--18th centuryEnlightenment--EnglandArt and society--Britain--History--18th centuryArt and philosophy--England--18th centuryArt and science--England--18th centuryShaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of, 1671-1713

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Chapter 7: From Criticism into Crisis
David H. Solkin
Description: Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century...
Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
The arrival of the annual exhibitions marked a crucial watershed in the history of artistic production in Britain. Regular public exposure gave painters an unprecedented freedom to experiment, to take risks in the hopes of attracting attention and material...
Author
David H. Solkin
PublisherPaul Mellon Centre
Copyright© 1992 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.247-276
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-31860
Chapter subject tags:Art criticism--England--18th centryPainting, British--18th centuryArt, British--Exhibitions--18th centuryReynolds, Joshua, Sir, 1723–1792Hogarth, William, 1697-1764Art and society--Britain--History--18th centuryRoyal Academy of Arts (Great Britain)West, Benjamin, 1738-1820History painting, British--18th century

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Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England
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