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

Download or read book The King's Artists : The Royal Academy of Arts and the Politics of British Culture 1760-1840 written by Holger Hoock and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2003-11-13 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.