In this article Thomas Maxwell, one of the organisers of the exhibition and co-author of the catalogue, In the Image of Man: The Indian perception of the Universe through 2,000 years of painting and sculpture (An Arts Council publication in conjunction with Weidenfeld and Nicolson) explains the background to the exhibition.
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the imposing canvases of battles and military manoeuvres painted by Elizabeth Thompson, later Lady Butler, caught the imagination of a nation keen to celebrate the successes of its Army. Among the artist’s many admirers was John Ruskin, who referred to her as the ‘Pallas of Pall Mall’.
German cartoonists, explains W.A. Coupe, told in stark visual language of the growing bitterness felt by their countrymen at the terms of the 1919 Peace Treaty.
William Hogarth's representations of black people in the 18th century.
Thomas Gretton presents a special review of the impact of the 19th century French satirical artist.
The artistic images of women depicted as witches were varied and constitute unusual 'pieces of history' by preserving a visual record of the intellectual origins of the witchcraze, as Dale Hoak discusses here.
Professor W. A. Coupe suggests, on the basis of the popular cartoon of the period, that the Emperor's person was the object of sustained criticism which seemed to augur well for the future political development of Germany.
The beautiful summer palaces of Yuan Ming Yuan outside Peking, designed by Europeans for the Emperor of China in the middle of the eighteenth century, have now been recognised as a curiosity of their country's heritage.
Popular art in the form of cartoons, caricatures and simple engravings offered great potential for political propaganda as the revolutionary leaders discovered.
According to Lindsey A.J. Hughes, Peter the Great's programme of Westernisation was neither as unheralded nor such a break with the past as has sometimes been suggested.
