The Elements of Life - Biography and Portrait-Painting in Stuart and Georgian England (Paperback, Revised)

In this ambitious study, Richard Wendorf establishes the grounds of comparison between two arts that have often been linked in a casual way but whose historical interrelations remain almost completely unexplored. By focusing on the great age of English portraiture - from the arrival of Van Dyck to the publication of Boswell's Life of Johnson - the author shows that, despite their obvious differences, visual and verbal portraits often shared similar assumptions about the representation of historical character. Grounded in modern theory devoted to the comparison of literature and painting and to the problem of representation, this book examines each form of portraiture in terms of the other. Among those writers considered are Izaak Walton, John Evelyn, John Aubrey, Roger North, Goldsmith, Johnson, Mrs Piozzi, Boswell; among the artists are Van Dyck, Lely, Samuel Cooper, Jonathan Richardson, Hogarth and Reynolds. The careers of `double agents' (painters, like Richardson and Reynolds, who experimented with biographical writing) are also discussed. The Elements of Life is a ground-breaking critical history of biography and portrait-painting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

General

Imprint:	Clarendon Press
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Clarendon Paperbacks
Release date:	1992
First published:	March 1992
Authors:	Richard Wendorf (Librarian, Houghton Library)
Dimensions:	233 x 155 x 22mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	330
Edition:	Revised
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-811979-1
Categories:	Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 1400 to 1600 > General Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 1800 to 1900 > General Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 16th to 18th centuries
LSN:	0-19-811979-8
Barcode:	9780198119791

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