William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age: Painting in the Victorian Age - Hardcover

Bills, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300121903 ISBN 13: 9780300121902

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2006

Synopsis

William Powell Frith (1819-1909) was the greatest British painter of the social scene since Hogarth. His panoramas of nineteenth-century life broke new ground in their depiction of the diverse London crowd, and they are now icons of their age. Frith's popularity in his lifetime was unprecedented; on six separate occasions special railings had to be built at the Royal Academy to protect his paintings from an admiring public. Derby Day and The Railway Station are nearly as well known today as a century ago, yet the artist who painted them is now neglected. This book explores Frith's place in the development of Victorian painting: the impact of his unconventional private life on his work, his relationships with Hogarth and Dickens, his influence on popular illustration, the place of costume in his paintings, his female models, his painting materials and practice, and much more. The book makes an important contribution to the literature on art in the Victorian era and to our understanding of the nineteenth century.

About this title

Review

...the appearance of this book from Yale University Press (jointly
edited by Mark Bills and Vivien Knight) is a greater event than the
exhibition (co-curated by Vivien Knight, Mark Bills and Jane Sellars)
itself. -- The British Art Journal

Synopsis

William Powell Frith (1819-1909) was the greatest British painter of the social scene since Hogarth. His panoramas of the wide spectrum of nineteenth-century life broke new ground in their depiction of the diverse London crowd and are icons of their age. Frith enjoyed unprecedented popularity and success in his lifetime; on six separate occasions special rails had to be built at the Royal Academy to protect his paintings from an admiring public. Derby Day and the Railway Station are almost as well known today as they were a century ago, yet the artist himself is neglected. This book explores Frith's place in the development of Victorian painting through a series of wide-ranging essays which examine how his unconventional private life informed his work, how the London crowd was depicted in Victorian painting, Frith's relationship with Hogarth and Dickens, his influence on popular illustration, the place of costume in his paintings, his female models, his painting materials and practice and his picture frames. The book is an important contribution to the literature on art in the Victorian era, and will appeal to specialists and everyone interested in the nineteenth century.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0300121903
• ISBN 13: 9780300121902
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208