An exhibition of original prints by \u2018the great historical painter\u2019 James Barry and his contemporaries, held in Studio 3 Gallery, Jarman Building on the University\u2019s Canterbury campus from the 4th October – 17th December 2010.<\/p>\n
In Elysium <\/em>is co-curated by Jon Kear and Ben Thomas of the University of Kent\u2019s\u00a0History and Philosophy of Art department<\/a> within the\u00a0School of Arts<\/a>. The exhibition is organised in association with the\u00a0Centre for Studies in the Long Eighteenth Century<\/a>, which is also organising the related day-conference\u00a0The Visual and the Verbal in the Eighteenth Century<\/a> on 5 November 2010. A catalogue of the exhibition with an introductory essay is available.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Drawing on private collections, and the University of Kent\u2019s own\u00a0Kent Print Collection<\/a>, this exhibition brings together a group of 16 original prints by James Barry, together with reproductive prints after his paintings. These works will be displayed along with prints by and after Barry\u2019s contemporaries, including Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Richard Wilson, John Hamilton Mortimer and Henry Fuseli.<\/p>\n Ben Thomas writes: \u2018James Barry (1741-1806) was a controversial figure in his time. An Irish Catholic from a poor background, he was supported as a young and ambitious artist by the philosopher Edmund Burke and the artist Joshua Reynolds, whose theories on high art and the sublime influenced him profoundly. Through his uncompromising behaviour he later alienated both friends. To his admirers, including William Blake, Barry was a martyr to the principles of high art in a corrupt and superficial age. However, to others he appeared an eccentric and irascible man with a persecution complex and radical views.<\/p>\n Whatever contemporaries felt about Barry\u2019s character, he was an artist who created a highly original body of works, including one of the most striking and important print oeuvres of the Eighteenth Century. A technical innovator in printmaking, Barry produced prints on a grand scale and in a style that his patrons often found \u2018coarse\u2019 but which appears bold and forceful to modern eyes.<\/p>\n Barry\u2019s prints were made initially to financially support his unpaid work on the murals in the Great Room of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (now the RSA) at the Adelphi in London from 1777. These paintings illustrate Barry\u2019s firm belief in the crucial role played by the arts in the \u2018progress of human culture\u2019. They were described in a contemporary review in the Morning Herald as \u2018one of the greatest exertions of genius that ever took place in any country\u2019 and the Great Room has been aptly described more recently by Andrew Graham-Dixon as Britain\u2019s Sistine Chapel. Through continually reworking his prints after these murals, Barry was able to revise and comment on their complex message. The title of the exhibition \u2013\u00a0In Elysium<\/em> \u2013 refers to the most ambitious of these murals, the Elysium and Tartarus, where Barry immortalised in an imaginary heaven the scientists, politicians, thinkers and artists he admired.<\/p>\n Alongside prints of the Society of Arts murals, the exhibition will also displays works that demonstrate Barry\u2019s engagement with the literature of Greek and Roman antiquity, and also with the great English poets Shakespeare and Milton.\u2019<\/p>\n For more information please contact the School of Arts on 01227 827228<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An exhibition of original prints by \u2018the great historical painter\u2019 James Barry and his contemporaries, held in Studio 3 Gallery, Jarman Building on the University\u2019s Canterbury campus from the 4th October – 17th December 2010. In Elysium is co-curated by Jon Kear and Ben Thomas of the University of Kent\u2019s\u00a0History and Philosophy of Art department … Continue reading In Elysium: Prints by James Barry<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":19,"menu_order":14,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":528,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions\/528"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}