The King's Artists: The Royal Academy of Arts and the Politics of British Culture 1760-1840

by Holger Hoock

Overview

This is the story of the forging of a national cultural institution in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. The Royal Academy of Arts was the dominant art school and exhibition society in London and a model for art societies across the British Isles and North America. This is the first study of its early years, re-evaluating the Academy's significance in national cultural life and its profile in an international context. Holger Hoock reassesses royal and state patronage of the arts and explores the concepts and practices of cultural patriotism and the politicization of art during the American and French Revolutions. By demonstrating how the Academy shaped the notions of an English and British school of art and influenced the emergence of the British cultural state, he illuminates the politics of national culture and the character of British public life in an age of war, revolution, and reform.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199266265
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2004
Series:	Oxford Historical Monographs
Pages:	388
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Selwyn College, Cambridge

Table of Contents

IntroductionPart I. Academies of Art1. Institutional History2. Promoting a National School3. Modelling Academies for the British School4. The Cosmopolitan Outlook of a National AcademyPart II. The Politicization of Art5. George III and the Artists6. French Revolutions in the Royal Academy? 7. The Spectacle of ExhibitionsPart III. Forging the Cultural State8. Professional Representations9. Monumental Miracles10. ConclusionsBibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

"This is a densely argued, well-referenced book that brings together a mass of archival material, some familiar, much freshly mined. It adds substantially to the literature on what it convincingly presents as a central and vital component in the composition of the British imperial establishment."—The Art Newspaper

From the Publisher