Product Overview
Jonathan Richardson (16671745), one of his generations foremost portrait painters, was also one of the most influential art theorists in eighteenth-century Britain. In this critical biography, Carol Gibson-Wood provides for the first time a detailed account of Richardsons life, including new information from original archival sources and unpublished correspondence, along with an analysis of Richardsons most significant theoretical texts.
Gibson-Wood describes art consumption in England in Richardsons time as well as the debates concerning native versus Continental painting. She argues that Richardsons personal and written responses to these circumstances quintessentially embody bourgeois English Enlightenment ideals and the Lockean principles underpinning them. The first part of the book examines Richardsons personal life, professional career, literary aspirations, activities as a collector, and relationships with such contemporaries as Alexander Pope. In the second part Gibson-Wood sets Richardsons writings in the context of earlier art theory and of other genres of contemporary writing and concludes that his art-theoretical program was a radically English one that upheld the ability of freethinking Englishmenincluding paintersto establish their own aesthetic criteria.
Gibson-Wood describes art consumption in England in Richardsons time as well as the debates concerning native versus Continental painting. She argues that Richardsons personal and written responses to these circumstances quintessentially embody bourgeois English Enlightenment ideals and the Lockean principles underpinning them. The first part of the book examines Richardsons personal life, professional career, literary aspirations, activities as a collector, and relationships with such contemporaries as Alexander Pope. In the second part Gibson-Wood sets Richardsons writings in the context of earlier art theory and of other genres of contemporary writing and concludes that his art-theoretical program was a radically English one that upheld the ability of freethinking Englishmenincluding paintersto establish their own aesthetic criteria.
