18th century Enlightenment thought spreads throughout Europe. Fostered in England by scientific innovations and
discoveries of the previous century, particularly those made by Isaac Newton (1642–1727), the inductive method
professed by Francis Bacon (1561–1626), and the empirical philosophy of John Locke (1632–1704), the
Enlightenment asserts the importance of human reason as well as the existence of natural law. Although the
movement is centered in Paris, it flourishes in England and gives rise to a generation of notable critics (Joseph
Addison, Richard Steele), satirists (Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift), and economists (Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham).
Inspired by this flowering of rationalism and order, the focus of the arts turns from the florid Rococo toward a
greater simplicity. At the same time, the discovery of the ruins of the ancient cities Herculaneum (1709) and Pompeii
(1748) renews interest in the classical world, and revolutions in France and America at mid-century invite
comparisons between ancient and modern government. These factors combine to advance the Neoclassical
movement in the visual arts and architecture.
1721 William Hogarth (1697–1764) publishes the
South Sea Scheme, a satirical engraving treating a
contemporary financial scandal. It is the first of many
moralizing subjects that mark the career of this
pivotal figure in the founding of the English school. In
addition to his merits as a painter, he asserts and
encourages throughout his career the independence
of artists from the confines of patronage by
publishing engravings after his own paintings. The
best known of these is A Rake's Progress (1735), an
episodic series illustrating the demise of a corrupt
young man.
1700
1705 Sir John Vanbrugh (1664–1726), as
popular a playwright as an architect, designs
Blenheim Palace at Oxfordshire, presented at
its completion (1724) by Queen Anne to the
first duke of Marlborough to honor his victories
in the Wars of Spanish Succession. Vanbrugh, a
colleague of English Baroque architects
Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor
(1661–1736), lends his particular flair for the
theatricality of Baroque design to this and other
structures, including the earlier Castle Howard
(1699–1712) in North Yorkshire.
1750
1738 A statue of the Baroque composer Georg Frideric
Handel (1685–1759) is erected at Vauxhall Gardens in
London. The vibrant informality of the likeness secures
great renown for its creator, French sculptor Louis François
Roubiliac (1702–1762), in his adopted city. The sculpture
also contributes to the spread of Rococo style in England,
and serves as the forerunner of later monuments to living
cultural icons of the age.
1750
1720s The Palladian revival in architecture is one of the
earliest manifestations of the Neoclassical movement
in England. Led by Richard Boyle, third earl of
Burlington, the revival exalts the simplicity and order of
classical structures as parallels to the clarity of reason;
many buildings of this period thus espouse the
classically grounded theories of Renaissance architect
Andrea Palladio, but interpret these theories with strict
severity. Lord Burlington's Chiswick House (1725–29),
constructed to his own design and decorated by
William Kent (1685–1748), exemplifies this movement.
Britain – 1700-1800
1761 While resident in the spa town of Bath, locus of a wealthy clientele, Thomas
Gainsborough (1727–1788) exhibits for the first time at the Society of Artists in
London. He settles there in 1774, already honored with a founding membership in the
Royal Academy and possessing a solid reputation for his ability to capture on canvas
the great beauties of the age. While best known for portraiture of outstanding
sophistication and assured fluidity of execution, Gainsborough is also a skilled
landscapist and draftsman, and experiments with the graphic media of soft-ground
etching and aquatint. Despite the fact that he never visits the Continent, he studies
closely and takes inspiration from the French Rococo and Dutch and Flemish masters
of the previous century, especially van Dyck. At his death in 1788, his contemporary
and some-time rival Joshua Reynolds eulogizes him by stating, "If ever this nation
should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the honourable distinction of an
English School, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in the
history of Art, among the very first of that rising name."
By 1760s The British school of portraiture flourishes in the hands of artists whose varied styles
and international influences make significant contributions to its depth and scope. In 1761, Allan
Ramsay (1713–1784), a Scottish painter working mostly in London, is appointed principal painter
to George III. Well-versed in the Baroque and also inspired by contemporary French painting
(both of which he encounters in travel and study on the Continent), Ramsay brings to his canvas
naturalism and intimacy coupled with worldly grace. In the two decades preceding his
appointment, Ramsay is among the most sought-after portraitists in England, influencing and
also occasionally rivaling his younger contemporaries, Reynolds and Gainsborough. In the
following year, George Romney (1734–1802), a painter of provincial birth, moves to London and
establishes a practice. Romney's portraits—at their most successful, of women—are
characterized by soft modeling, fluidity of form, and rich coloration.
1772 Benjamin West (1738–1820), a major proponent of Neoclassicism, is appointed historical painter to King George III. Born in Pennsylvania, West
travels to Italy in 1760 and, three years later, to England. Although intending to stay only briefly, he settles there for the remainder of his life and
becomes a founding member of the Royal Academy. At Reynolds's death in 1792, West succeeds him as the Academy's president. In his most famous
work, The Death of General Wolfe (1770; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa), West lends—with dramatic composition, gesture, and scale—a sense of
classical heroism to his depiction of the event while remaining faithful, through setting and costume, to its historical truth. In 1774, West is joined in
London by his countryman and likeminded supporter of Neoclassicism, John Singleton Copley (1738–1815). An outstanding portraitist, after settling in
London Copley additionally undertakes large-scale history paintings such as Watson and the Shark (1778; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), an opportunity
for the artist to present a moral allegory through the horrific scene of a young man's narrow escape from the assailing shark.
1766 Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807) arrives in London, where she settles until
1781. The young Swiss painter of prodigious talent, already renowned on the
Continent, achieves immediate success in England, and is one of two women
honored in 1768 with a founding membership in the Royal Academy (the other is
still-life painter Mary Moser, 1744–1819). Working with Neoclassical architects
William Chambers (1726–1796) and Robert Adam (1728–1792), Kauffmann supplies
interior designs for Adam (whose own elegant designs are among the most popular
of the period) and produces four allegories for Chambers's new rooms for the Royal
Academy at Somerset House. An accomplished portraitist and a prolific advocate of
Neoclassical history painting in England, she continues to exhibit there until the
1790s, long after her relocation to Rome.
1766 Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797) paints A Philosopher Lecturing with a
Mechanical Planetary (Derby Museum and Art Gallery) and, two years later, executes
An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (National Gallery, London). In the 1760s,
candle- and lamp-lit interiors such as these become an increasing preoccupation of the
artist, who here employs Caravaggesque lighting techniques to effect drama in scenes
of scientific inquiry and discovery. The depiction of research and experimentation
reflects a key component of Enlightenment thought; the artist himself was well
acquainted with several scientific and technological luminaries of the day, including
Josiah Wedgwood and the poet and scientist Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802).
1790 Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), recently settled in London from Bath, exhibits two full-length portraits at the
Royal Academy: one depicts Queen Charlotte (National Gallery, London), the other the actress and later countess of
Derby, Elizabeth Farren (50.135.5). The pictures meet with great public and critical acclaim, and are praised above
even the work of co-exhibitor Reynolds for their naturalistic freshness and vivacity. Two years later, Lawrence
succeeds Reynolds as painter to George III, and his reputation as the finest painter of his generation carries into the
nineteenth century, when his style becomes increasingly influenced by Romanticism.
1800
1790 George Stubbs (1724–1806), an artist known for his "portraits" of racehorses and other animals, paints Lion Attacking
a Horse (Yale University Art Gallery). Inspired by a scene he witnesses during a visit to North Africa, the violent subject
matter as well as the tempestuous setting in which he places it point toward the Romantic movement, with its commingling
of the horrific and the sublime, its exaltation of nature and the emotions. About the same time, Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), a
Swiss-born artist active in London, paints The Nightmare (Frankfurter Goethe-Museum, Frankfurt). Fuseli has a deep
understanding of classical art and literature acquired during a long stay in Italy; he also shows a keen interest in
contemporary literature, poetry, and theater. In Fuseli's hands, classical elements combine with a psychological penetration
and a sense of the macabre that mark a transition between the Neoclassic and the Romantic. In The Nightmare, the
reclining, draped figure of the sleeper calls on a classical motif, while her eerily luminescent form and contorted pose
convey the tormented nature of her sleep.
1768 The Royal Academy is founded, with the painter Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) as its president. Widely traveled and
by this time the most celebrated painter in London, Reynolds is soon to be distinguished also as a man of letters, as the
first of his annual lectures, the Discourses on Art (1769–90), are published to great acclaim in 1778. In 1784, Reynolds is
appointed chief painter to George III. Although lacking in the adept brushwork of his rival contemporary Thomas
Gainsborough, Reynolds's mastery of pose and gesture elevates his subjects to a grand, often heroic ideal. In The
Honorable Henry Fane (1739–1802) with His Guardians, Inigo Jones and Charles Blair (87.16), Reynolds applies this sense
of grandeur to the conversation piece, a type of painting popular in England from about 1725. Depicting relatives or
intimates at leisure, the conversation piece derives in part from Dutch cabinet pictures of the seventeenth century and is
usually small in scale. Reynolds preserves the informality of this type, but renders it in a dramatic full-size canvas.