Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner: British Painting and the Rise of Modernity

From Hogarth to Reynolds, from Gainsborough to Turner, the great protagonists of English painting between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is the first comprehensive overview of the extraordinary development of British painting during the eighteenth century, which anticipated themes, styles, and techniques that later became paradigms of modernity. This volume focuses on the English context at a time when the growth of artistic standing was accompanied by the country’s conquest of hegemony on a historical, political, and economic plane. The volume is arranged chronologically in seven sections, which include a selection of over 100 masterpieces by the most significant English painters. The main objective is to enable readers to rediscover the genres of portrait and landscape, which have always characterized British art. Readers can admire the work of artists like William Hogarth, Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli), Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Joseph Wright of Derby, George Stubbs, John Constable, and William Turner, who offer a completely original cross section of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century painting in Great Britain.

Valter Curzi, art historian and writer, lectures on Modern Art History at Rome University “La Sapienza.” Carolina Brooks, art historian specializing in painting and culture between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is a lecturer at Pisa University.