Examining the literary career of the eighteenth-century Irish painter James Barry, 1741-1806 through an interdisciplinary methodology, The Writings of James Barry and the Genre of History Painting, 1775-1809 is the first full-length study of the artist s writings. Liam Lenihan critically assesses the artist s own aesthetic philosophy about painting and printmaking, and reveals the extent to which Barry wrestles with the significant stylistic transformations of the pre-eminent artistic genre of his age: history painting. Lenihan s book delves into the connections between Barry s writings and...