"Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner, English painting towards modernity" at Palazzo Sciarra Museum in Rome
Joshua Reynolds, Lady Bampfylde, 1776-1777; olio su tela, 238,1 x 148 cm © Tate, London 2014
ROME - Promoted by Fondazione Roma and organised by Fondazione Roma-Arte-Musei, the exhibition Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner. British Painting and the Rise of Modernity, will be held in Palazzo Sciarra from the 15th April to the 20th July 2014.
The exhibition curated by Carolina Brook and Valter Curzi intends to offer to the public a comprehensive overview of the social and artistic development that took place during the XVIII century in step with the hegemony gained by Great Britain at the historical, political and economic level.
For this purpose a corpus of over one hundred works belonging to prestigious institutions such as the British Museum, Tate Gallery, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Royal Academy, the National Portrait Gallery, the Museum of London and the Uffizi Gallery has been formed and is accompanied by a nucleus of works from the important American collection belonging to the Yale Centre of British Art.
During the eighteenth century England became an authentic international power, leader of the Industrial Revolution and of the domination of the sea routes, and thus raised the issue of establishing a British artistic school for the first time.
The economic development lead by Great Britain created a new middle-class which included professionals, industrialists, merchants, scientists and philosophers who, having found that visible arts considerably affirmed their new social status, became patrons of those masters who over the century contributed to the definition of a national school.
The exhibition is divided into seven sections featuring a selection of works by the most significant English painters, for the purpose of documenting the portrait and landscape genres that prospered during this century, creating a figurative language capable of interpreting modernity, which then became a reference throughout Europe during the nineteenth century.
Visitors may admire artists such as Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Wright of Derby, Stubbs, Fuseli, Constable and Turner. Their works offer a significant cross-section of the peculiarity and originality of English art, an exhibition of which has not been held in Rome since 1966.
Johann Heinrich Füssli, La visione della regina Caterina, 1781; olio su tela, Lytham St Annes Art Collection, Fylde Borough Council, Lancashire, UK.
Thomas Gainsborough, William Wollaston, circa 1759; olio su tela, 128,4 x 102,5 cm. Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Paesaggio a Nepi, Lazio, con acquedotto e cascata, 1828. Olio su tela, 150,2 x 249,2 © Tate, London 2014
Allan Ramsay, Miss Janet Shairp, 1750; olio su tela, 76,2 x 63,4 cm. Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Collections.
John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, 1829 – 1831. Oil on canvas © the Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London
Joshua Reynolds, L’attore Garrick con la moglie Eva Maria Violette, 1772-1773; olio su tela, 140,3 x 169,9 cm © National Portrait Gallery, London.
William Hogarth, Ritratto di gruppo con Lord John Hervey, circa 1738-1740; olio su tela, 101,6 x 127 cm © National Trust Images/John Hammond.
John Constable, Il canale presso il mulino, 1810-1814; olio su tela, 71 x 91,8 cm. Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service.
Wright of Derby, Grotta nel golfo di Salerno al tramonto, 1780-1781; olio su tela, 101,6 x 127 cm. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
Giovanni Antonio Canal, detto “Canaletto”, La City di Londra vista attraverso un arco di Westminster Bridge, 1747; olio su tela, 59.7 x 97.5 cm. Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle.
William Hodges, Tahiti rivisitata, 1776; olio su tela, 92,7 x 138,4 cm © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London