Cecilia Powell

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Italy in the Age of Turner: The Garden of the World

Cecilia Powell

Synopsis:
After the Napoleonic War British artists rediscovered Italy. The age of the Grand Tour was over -- Italy was no longer simply a museum of antiquities, a playground for frivolous Milordi. Inspired by its unique blend of beauty and decay, artists continued their interest in the great monuments, but now noticed people living among these giants: men and women with a vivid life. The landscape remained a lazy Arcadia for some, recalling Claude or Richard Wilson, but could also become a teeming, fertile garden full of husbandry and incident. The heat of the South lured chilly Northerners to discover passion among its pagan idylls, an allure which was to have a great influence on the work of Victorian artists. Many of these works, long overlooked, are now discussed and illustrated together for the first time. Four seminal Turner oil paintings, in addition to nine important but rarely seen watercolors, are joined by fine examples of work by Samuel Palmer, Richard Parkes Bonington, Edward Lear, John Ruskin, Samuel Prout, and Charles Lock Eastlake, documenting the altered inspiration Italy provided British artists in the first half of the 19th century.

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Other editions: Softcover - 2009, Hardcover - 2004, Softcover - 1998, Softcover - 1996, 1995, Softcover - 1992, Hardcover - 1991, Hardcover - 1987