Joanne Wright

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Pursuit of Leisure: Victorian Depictions of Pastimes

Joanne Wright

Synopsis:
Coincides with an exhibition at The Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter 28 December 1997 - 21 March 1998 Victorian genre painting remains a relatively under-investigated field. In the depictions of themselves and their surroundings, the Victorians were aware that they were creating a new art for a new age by depicting scenes of contemporary activities in their everyday life. The climate of social and political change encouraged the notion of personal choice and the choice of spare-time pursuits reflected taste and personality. The Pursuit of Leisure reviews paintings by artists such as Alma Tadema, Millais, Holman Hunt, Tissot and Lavery depicting varied activities from cricket, croquet and card-playing to race-going, dancing and even rat-catching. The paintings are complex markers of traditional divides between town and country as well as the social divides of class, age and gender. The challenge for the artist was to devise formats for new pursuits such as cycling and sun-bathing yet keep within the traditional references of portraiture and landscape painting. This study brings to light the ingenuity and sharpness of observation exhibited in these Victorian 'leisure pictures', which are well worth the discovery.

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Other editions: Hardcover - 2000, Softcover - 1995, Hardcover - 1991, Softcover - 1983, Hardcover - 1983