Royal Academy Exhibition of 1818
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The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1818 was an art exhibition held at Somerset House in London between 4 May and 27 June 1818. It was the fiftieth annual Summer Exhibition staged by the Royal Academy of Arts and attracted nearly eighty thousand visitors. [1] It featured submissions from most of the leading British-based painters, sculptors and architects of the Regency era.
J.M.W. Turner displayed The Field of Waterloo, a scene of the aftermath of the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. As night has fallen the battlefield is covered with corpses with the farmhouse of Hougoumont still blazing in the background. He exhibited it with lines from Lord Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.[2] Another work by Turner receiving critical attention ws his seascape Dort or Dordrecht. This has been interpreted as a riposte to the success of his friend and rival Augustus Wall Callcott's The Pool of London at the Academy Exhibition of 1816. In 1818 Callcott exhibited Mouth of the Tyne, which also received praise. [3]
The leading portraitist of the era Thomas Lawrence featured pictures of prominent figures including the Prince Regent and the Duke of Wellington with his horse Copenhagen. This was the largest of seven portraits of the Duke painted by Lawrence.[4] George Dawe attracted notice for his Portrait of Princess Charlotte, who had died in childbirth the previous year leaving the country without a guaranteed heir. Dawe also displayed a painting of her husband Prince Leopold.
The American-born President of the Royal Academy Benjamin West submitted one of his last major works the history painting The Treaty of Allahabad. His fellow American Washington Allston showed Hermia and Helena based on a scene from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. [5] David Wilkie displayed the genre painting The Errand Boy and The Abbotsford Family, a group portrait of the writer Sir Walter Scott and his relations at Abbotsford.[6]
Gallery
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Portrait of the Prince Regent by Thomas Lawrence -
Lady Ackland and Her Sons by Thomas Lawrence -
The Duke of Wellington on Copenhagen by Thomas Lawrence -
Portrait of Frederick Stewart by Thomas Lawrence -
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Portrait of George Campbell by William Beechey -
Portrait of Earl Grosvenor by John Jackson -
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The Errand Boy by David Wilkie -
The Abbotsford Family by David Wilkie -
The Treaty of Allahabad by Benjamin West -
Hermia and Helena by Washington Allston
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References
[edit]- ^ "1818 Camaraderie and Rivalry on Display".
- ^ Bailey p.271
- ^ "1818 Camaraderie and Rivalry on Display".
- ^ Reynolds p.164-66
- ^ Ward p.24
- ^ Tromans p.10
Bibliography
[edit]- Bailey, Anthony. J.M.W. Turner: Standing in the Sun. Tate Enterprises Ltd, 2013.
- Hamilton, James. Turner - A Life. Sceptre, 1998.
- Levey, Michael. Sir Thomas Lawrence. Yale University Press, 2005.
- Reynolds, Luke. Who Owned Waterloo?: Battle, Memory, and Myth in British History, 1815–1852. Oxford University Press, 2022.
- Tromans, Nicholas. David Wilkie: The People's Painter. Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
- Ward, Meredith. Adventure and Inspiration: American Artists in Other Lands. Hirschl and Adler Galleries, 1988.