General information

The official site of The Royal Academy of Arts: the archives with links to various documents such as Gainsborough on contemporary art theory, Turner on the Contemporary Press, Turner and the Royal Academy Club, The Grand Tour and 'the very devil' by Benjamin West (extracts only...).

A site about the foundation of The Royal Academy with links to "Sir" Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, William Chambers, the Presidents of the RA and The Royal Academy's vexed influence on British art (Pre-Raphaelites and Summer Exhibitions artists).

English Art in the 18th Century from the Web Gallery of Art with lots of links

The English school of painting

English Art in the 18th Century (painting, sculpture and historical background) by the Web Gallery of Art

English Landscape Painting

English Art and Architecture from 1599 onwards

Palladian Architecture

"Palladio's Villa Emo: The Golden Proportion Hypothesis Defended",
by Rachel Fletcher

Georgian Architecture

Neoclassicism in architecture and painting (from Wikepedia)

Neoclassical Furniture (Garrett's Attic by Wendell Garrett) from Artnet

Resources

Joshua Reynolds' Discourses

Edmund Burke's Essay: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of The Sublime and Beautiful With Several Other Additions (Bartleby e-text)

A useful summary of Burke's Inquiry on the Norton Anthology online topics website

Wiliam Blake on Art and Artists (from Project Gutenberg)

Blake's Theory of Art by Eaves, Morris (with excerpts from Blake's works)

William Blake on Joshua Reynolds

Lord Shaftesbury's "Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, times" (.pdf files to download)

Sir John Soane's Royal Academy Lecture: extract only, courtesy of Cambridge University Press (edited by David Watkin, 2000)

George Cruikshank by William Thackeray (from Project Gutenberg)

Thomas McCauley's Critical and Historical Essays, Vol. II (from Project Gutenberg)

Recent comments on the Picturesque

The Aesthetics of the Picturesque (Gavin Budge, Editor): a short description of the book (Chicago University Press)

A Web page on The Picturesque with excerpts from William Gilpin's and Thomas Whately by the University of Columbia (Canada)

Death to the Picturesque! by Jonathan Meades (from OpenDemocracy): "In this continuing exploration of the relationship between landscape and identity – whether personal or national identity, often both simultaneously – Jonathan Meades evokes childhood memories of a working landscape, before the shades of prettification set in. Meades is adamant that the English disease is really an urban longing for the picturesque – that way of seeing the countryside as a stage set or a painting, rather than a place where many people work and live."

Imagine the Countryside a response to Jonathan Meades, by Peter Wood (from OpenDemocracy): "The picturesque is a vehicle of ruthless sentiment, but the greatest English artists offer a more humane, realistic vision of landscape."

Landscape Painting: reflections of an art teacher (Christine Wood), from OpenDemocracy: "The phrase ‘how you see is who you are’ attractively ties the experience of landscape to personal identity. Yet our connection to landscape is also a mirror of our relationships with each other. As politics, technology and media suffuse our lives, can landscape painting still offer a way of extending our sense of ourselves?"

The Poetic Landscape: Watercolour Artists with information on Wilson, Gilpin, Constable, Turner, Cozens.

A short introduction to William Gilpin's work

Neoclassicism by Natio.Master Encyclopedia

 

Information about the main artists of the Royal Academy

Architects

Robert Adam
Robert Adam (1728-1792) from Speeldemon: Robert Adam was one of the main architects of the RA; designed Kenwood House
Robert Adam: a biography with information on the "Grand Tour", Palladianism and Adam's rebellion and Robert Adam's work

William Chambers
A short biography by Great Buildings and Architects on-line
Biography and some examples of Chambers' work on Irish Architecture online
William Chamber on (biography and work) on Wikipedia
A few examples of William Chambers' drawings
Chambers and Chinese architecture

Sir John Soane
On the Soane Museum (photographs mainly)
From Sir John Soane's Museum, The Making of an Architect
A short biography of John Soane on Wikidpedia
On Soane's house (a good general photograph of the building)
A list of John Soane's buildings
John Soane, "Le Rêve de l'architecte": short review of the catalogue of an exhibition

Painters

James Barry
Biography from the 1911 Encyclopedia
James Barry's work from World Wide Arts Resources
James Barry's self-portrait from InterArt
James Barry's Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida (detail)

Gainsborough (Thomas)
Thomas Gainsborough
another biography; Gainsborough on Wikipedia
some biographical elements with links to Gainsborough's work
Gainsborough and "Perdita" from the Guardian Unlimited
A review of a Gainsborough Exhibition (2002) at the Tate by Guardian Unlimited
Gainsborough's Modernity by The Tate Magazine

Sir Thomas Lawrence
A short biography of Thomas Lawrence
A review of Thomas Lawrence's portrait of George IV from the Guardian Unlimited
Five Portraits by Thomas Lawrence from The State Hermitage Museum (Petrograd) and four from The Louvre
Some works by Th. Lawrence's; plus here
Other portraits by Thomas Lawrence: Mrs Siddons; Elisabeth Farren; The Duke of Wellington; The Calmady Children

Sir Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds (from the 1911 Encyclopedia)
Joshua Reynolds by The Web Gallery of Art
Biography and works
Some paintings by Joshua Reynolds
Reynolds on Wikipedia
Reynolds, Sir Joshua on The Columbia Encyclopedia
Reynolds, Gainsborough by Speel.Demon
Joshua Reynolds' painting collection
Paintings by Reynolds
Reynolds' Letters: "Self-portrait in words", reviewed by Michael Prodger (The Telegraph, Feb 2001)

Joseph Mallord Turner
Turner, an overview: A Biography of Turner
Turner online by the Britain Tate
Turner: Reflections of Sea and Light (notes on an exhibition organised at the Britain Tate). Includes chapters on "Working Process", "The Theory of the Sublime", "The Picturesque", "Industrialisation" and "The Royal Academy and the Society of Painters in Water-Colours"
The Unknown Turner: Notes for Teachers (.pdf document) from the Britain Tate, by Miquette Roberts
Of the Turnerian Picturesque by John Ruskin

Benjamin West
Benjamin West
Benjamin West
Some paintings by B. West
Benjamin West, an American Hero
The Benjamin West Group (from the Royal Academy site)
Benjamin West from Wikipedia
Benjamin West's The Death of Wolfe by Colonel C. P. Stacey, Director of History Department of National Defence (USA)
Works by or on Benjamin West from Questia (e-texts... but you have to pay for them)

Johan Zoffany
A biography of Johan Zoffany on Britain Tate Online
A list of Zoffany's works in The Tate
George III and Queen Charlotte at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until January 9, 2005 (a review from The Telegraph)
Paintings on the French Revolution by J. Zoffany
Portrait of John Moody as Father Foigard In The Beaux Stratagem by Johan Joffany

 

Background information on the 18th and 19th centuries

Eighteenth Century Resources, edited by Jack Lynch of Rutgers, Newark

Restoration and the 18th Century from Voice of the Shuttle (with General Resources in Restoration & 18th-C. Lit., authors, works, projects, criticism, journals, listservs & newsgroups)

Rescuing the Novel: "Aesthetics, as a formal branch of philosophy that deals with issues of beauty and taste, originated in 18th-century England. Orthodox discourse on its development usually centers on Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third earl of Shaftesbury, and on the concepts of the Beautiful and the Sublime. Ronald Paulson argues in a new book that the orthodoxy ignores an important and fascinating aspect of aesthetics' development: William Hogarth's exploration of a third concept: the Novel."

The Restoration and the 18th century on The Norton topics online

The Romantic Age: an Introduction, on The Norton topics online

Interesting books to buy on the Web

Painting for money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England by David H. Solkin (Yale University Books)