Art Criticism in Great Britain, 1830-1850

FAIN: FR-10260-78

John C. Olmsted
Oberlin College (Oberlin, OH 44074-1057)

To explore the interrelationship of literature and painting in Great Britain in the 1830s and 1840s by means of a program of intensive reading. An attempt will be made to define the standards of judgment implicit in book-length works of art criticism and in art reviews of the period in journals such as The Art-Union. Fraser's Magazine and the Athenaeum. A knowledge of the critical literature written in a period when J.M. W. Turner was puzzling and stimulating art critics like John Ruskin and W.M. Thackeray would contribute to a better understanding of early Victorian critical attitudes towards all of the arts.