Exhibitions, Fall 2010

From Classic to Romantic
British Art in an Age of Transition
October 29 - January 30

		John Martin British, 1789–1854 Belshazzar's Feast, 1835 Mezzotint with etching, working proof, 11 5⁄8 x 16 7⁄8 inches (sheet) Museum Purchase with Curriculum Support Funds, 2006.9.2

Curated by Bruce Boucher, Director;
Andrea Douglas, Curator of Exhibitions;
and Stephen Margulies, Volunteer Curator

This exhibition chronicles changes in British art during one of its most intensively productive periods, drawing upon the rich holdings of this Museum and the Special Collections Library as well as generous loans from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The period marked a convulsive age in the development of the modern world, witnessing both the French and Industrial Revolutions, which shook perceptions of tradition and order. Gradually, the hegemony of classical art and literature began to buckle under new challenges that drew attention towards the empirical and naturalistic, and historical inquiry led to an appreciation that past epochs and whole civilizations had their own identities and cultures. Politics, science and psychology opened up new vistas for the future but also changed attitudes towards the countryside and its inhabitants as well as a vanishing way of life associated with both. The reception of cultural heroes like Shakespeare and Milton also registered the shifting ways in which literature became a vehicle for new modes of inquiry.

Some artists displayed—Flaxman, Blake, Stubbs, and Turner—are well known; others—Morland, Martin, and West—are less famous. Yet all reflect aspects of the transformation of art in this period. They are joined here by their continental counterparts, who either worked in Britain or shared parallel inquiries elsewhere.

The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of WHTJ, Arts$, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and The Hook.

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Battle of Wonders Literary Contest

From Classic to Romantic: British Art in an Age of Transition, on view through January 30, 2011, displays the genius of artists who are still influencing our own times, such as William Blake, Henry Fuseli, John Constable, Joseph Mallord William Turner, John Flaxman, Thomas Gainsborough, Maria Cosway and George Stubbs. It also includes the romantic and classical genius of the continent, as seen in Eugene Delacroix, Claude Lorrain, Piranesi and many others. The period in which these artists were working, the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was as revolutionary as any other in history, not only in art but also in science, industry, politics, literature. Almost overnight, the world passed from traditional rationalist classical thinking to the wildest adventures of the imagination. This exhibition highlights writers but also emphasizes the sciences, displaying images from works by or about great astronomers or scientific thinkers such as Erasmus Darwin and William Herschel, both father and son. Artists, scientists, and writers—classicists and romantics—profoundly influenced each other.

To celebrate this "battle of wonders"—for both cool classicists and hot romantics sought the sublime—the Museum is holding a literary contest beginning October 29 and ending December 14. All submissions must be turned in to the front desk of the museum and addressed to Stephen Margulies, University of Virginia Art Museum by 5 pm, December 14. Submissions should be a maximum of two pages. Winners will be asked to read or perform their work during a reception that will be held at the museum on January 27 at 5:30 pm. Friends and relatives are welcome! The event is free! There will be refreshments and more surprises!!

Your work may be inspired by the soul of Jane Austen or Mary Shelley, Pope or Keats, Blake or William Herschel or a mixture of all or none. Reason versus emotion? Fact versus imagination? Can they be divided? Do we need it all? Wildness or serenity, chaos or order, infinite yearning or pleased embrace of an ideal? Sense or sensibility? Calm or exhilaration? Spirit or flesh? Reality or fantasy? Science or poetry? Above all—terror or beauty?