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Discourses of art and social interests: the representation of landscape in Britain c.1800-1830

Hemingway, Andrew Frank; (1989) Discourses of art and social interests: the representation of landscape in Britain c.1800-1830. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), University of London. Green open access

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Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the functions of naturalistic landscape painting in Britain c. 1800-1830, and with its status as a modern imagery. The introductory chapter explains the usage of the categories 'ideology' and 'naturalism*. Part One offers a model of the political forms taken by class interests in the period, and situates artists as a social fraction with distinct interests of its own. On the presupposition that production of meaning depends on the interaction between verbal and visual systems, Part Two provides an ideology critique of the three forms of writing which represented the visual arts: (i) philosophical criticism, (ii) academic theory, and (iii) art criticism. In relation to two types of landscape subject, coastal and river scenes, Part Three investigates how artists dealt with the problems of representing the modern, and the probable meanings of different image types. The thesis attempts to show that: (a) the category of art was the object of a struggle within critical discourse, which represented a conflict of class Interests - this struggle centred around the cultural responsibilities of the state, patronage, and control of art institutions, (b) some artists attempted to adapt the recalcitrant modes of landscape painting to the representation of modernity, (c) the emergence of naturalism was linked with a Romantic aesthetic of originality, which helped license a form of modernity, (d) while there was no genetic relationship between naturalistic landscape painting and a particular class interest, in the context of the overall system of contemporary painting, its mode of address lent it to appropriation by bourgeois Ideologues and (e) despite a brief moment of critical insight into the social functions of culture, the bourgeois intelligensia failed to produce a critique of the mythologies of English landscape, which had a predominantly (but not exclusively) conservative function.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: Discourses of art and social interests: the representation of landscape in Britain c.1800-1830
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History of Art
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10203627
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