Seminar: British Painting in the Age of Romanticism

In English studies, Romanticism is often regarded as a literary phenomenon dominated by poetry. However not only was the eccentric visionary Blake just as much a painter and engraver as a poet: British landscapists such as Bonington, Constable and Turner are also important in the history of European painting, and even in the fields of portraiture and ‘history’ painting a host of lesser-known painters from the period prove to be interesting in their own way. We shall look at and discuss a selection of works produced between 1760 and 1850, regarding them in the light of the aesthetic theories of the time and taking other artistic and social developments in Britain and on the continent into consideration where appropriate.

A reader containing a selection of theoretical texts from the Romantic period will be provided by the beginning of October.

Recommended introductory reading:

Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution. London: Weidenfeld 2010 (A brief but fairly comprehensive, very readable overview of European Romanticism in its larger historical context.)

Honour, Hugh. Romanticism. Harmondsworth: Pelican 1981 (Mainly on the visual arts, international in scope.)

Lister, Raymond. British Romantic Painting. Cambridge: CUP 1989 (An anthology of reproductions with individual commentaries and an introductory essay.)

Vaughan, William. British Painting: The Golden Age from Hogarth to Turner. London: Thames & Hudson 1999 (A compact but comprehensive overview c. 1720–1850, referring to social and political history, too.)