William Pressly presents for the first time a close analysis of two important, neglected paintings, arguing that they are among the most extraordinary works of art devoted to the French Revolution. Johan Zoffany's Plundering the King's Cellar at Paris, August 10, 1792, and Celebrating over the Bodies of the Swiss Soldiers, both painted in about 1794, represent events that helped turn the English against the Revolution.
Pressly places both paintings in their historical context--a time of heightened anti-French hysteria--and relates them to pictorial conventions: contemporary...

This book examines the first generation of artists in Britain to define themselves as history painters, attempting what then was considered to be art's most exalted category. These ambitious artists, including John Hamilton Mortimer, Henry Fuseli, Alexander and John Runciman, James Barry, James Jefferys, George Romney, John Flaxman, and William Blake, most of whom were born in the 1740s and 60s, were presented with the challenge of how best to compete with the continental old masters when they had only an impoverished native tradition on which to build. They cultivated the concept of the...

Between 1777 and 1784, the Irish artist James Barry (1741-1806) executed six murals for the Great Room of the Royal] Society of Arts in London. This book is the first to offer an in-depth analysis of these remarkable paintings.



Barry insisted on, and received, complete control over his subject matter, the first time in the history of Western art that the patron of a large, impressive interior agreed to such a demand. The artist required autonomy in order to present his personal vision, which encompasses a rich and complex surface narrative as well as a hidden meaning that...