Genius Fan

Our imaginations are rendering machines of infinite capacity. We can conjure anything we want in our mind’s eye and, for the moment anyway, only we can tap into them. But don’t rely just on the text in your favourite book to fuel your Eighteenth century day dreams, get creative and seek out new sources of data: artifacts, places, music, smells and of course paintings. Get your eyeballs busy studying paintings by Raeburn, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Canaletto, Ramsay, Sandby, Rowlandson (I’m well aware my portrait sketch of these artists is somewhat hubristic, ahem) and hundreds more. You can see many of their paintings hanging on walls in art galleries, and you can buy cheap second hand books filled with their most famous works. Also looking at and understanding paintings is a skill. Don’t just give it the 1,000 yard stare. You have to explore the image, the composition, the fore, mid and background, the people and places, the faces and gestures, the clothing and look for meaning. John Berger’s little book Ways of Seeing is a brilliant way into this and the introduction to any book of paintings will give context.

Here are three paintings which are helping me ‘see’ into my favourite century. Thomas Gainsborough’s Cottage Door paintings remind me that people in the Eighteenth century dreamed of living in a cottage away from the town and city. Canaletto’s (Giovanni Antonio Canal) Westminster Bridge (under construction, seen from the south east) is wonderfully detailed with so many little stories embodied in the people depicted. And Thomas Rowlandson’s Picturesque Beauties of Boswell, a collection of 20 satirical engravings illustrating scenes from James Boswell’s wonderful 1785 book A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson. These pictures bring key scenes to life.

Notes
Ways of Seeing, John Berger (1972) See the website
A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1785)
To the Hebrides: Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and James Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, Ronald Black (ed) (2007). All 20 images are included in this edition
Regarding Thomas Rowlandson, 1757-1827: His Life, Art and Acquaintance, James and Matthew Payne (2010)