Empire to Nation
WARNING
You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com
Art, History and the Visualization of Maritime Britain, 1768-1829
Geoff Quilley
View Inside
Format: ClothPrice: $50.00
Empire to Nation offers a new consideration of the image of the sea in British visual culture during a critical period for both the rise of the visual arts in Britain and the expansion of the nation's imperial power. It argues that maritime imagery was central to cultivating a sense of nationhood in relation to rapidly expanding geographical knowledge and burgeoning imperial ambition. At the same time, the growth of the maritime empire presented new opportunities for artistic enterprise.
Taking as its starting point the year 1768, which marks the foundation of the Royal Academy and the launch of Captain Cook's first circumnavigation, it asserts that this was not just an interesting coincidence but symptomatic of the relationship between art and empire. This relationship was officially sanctioned in the establishment of the Naval Gallery at Greenwich Hospital and the installation there of J. M. W. Turner's great Battle of Trafalgar in 1829, the year that closes this study. Between these two poles, the book traces a changing historical discourse that informed visual representation of maritime subjects
Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
"[A] strikingly handsome book.”
—Andrew Lambert, The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord
Publication Date: August 30, 2011
Publishing Partner: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
40 color + 100 b/w illus.
