Biography of Thomas Rowlandson With Illustration , 1969

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For your consideration…Biography of the ;ife of Thomas Rowlandson with Illustrations
Published in 1969

With 50 of his more risqué … Read more For your consideration…Biography of the ;ife of Thomas Rowlandson with Illustrations
Published in 1969

With 50 of his more risqué illustrations

Large Format Art Book

12” x 9.5”

In very good condition

Art in Britain during the Georgian period (1714-1830) is characterized by sophisticated oil paintings of landscapes and well-lit portraits by world renowned artists including J.M.W. Turner, Joshua Reynolds, and Thomas Gainsborough. The ink and watercolor drawings of English artist and caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) stand in contrast to the purpose and style of the time. This can be immediately appreciated in his “Puss in Boots” (Fig. 2 below) where he satirized army camp life and the mores of Napoleon’s field officer General Jean-Andoche Junot, 1st Duc d’Abrantès at the height of the Napoleonic Wars when British loved to lampoon French bellicosity. Not only did Rowlandson demonstrate a preference for different materials, he choose the everyday life of all Londoners as his subject matter. Through his detailed art, Rowlandson provided an unintentional abundance of information that is incredibly important for the historian of art and culture and quite significant because he may have been the most accurate documenter of life in London over a period of almost half a century. Consequentially, it is from Rowlandson that we learn the most about anthropology of the era. We are fortunate that he was so acutely attuned to the pace and pulse of the world around himn addition to his depictions of society, through Rowlandson’s drawings, we learn what leisure activities were popular at the time. We see that drinking, smoking, gambling, and carousing are quintessential Georgian past times and that coffee houses, pubs, and debate clubs were favorite haunts.  We learn that get-togethers for the purpose of introducing chemistry experiments might be sources of entertainment. We see examples of public hangings, dog fights, and boxing.  From the social scenes depicted, we also see various details about the latest fashions including wig styles, extravagant hats, and lace for men.  We see recognizable, noted architecture as well as social gatherings for the elite and general public.

By the early eighteenth century, the Covent Garden area of London, where Rowlandson lived (Blake and Hogarth were also neighbors), had become London’s bohemian center. It was the home of artists, writers, printers, actors, courtesans, and numerous taverns. Rowlandson often depicted life within this enclave of London’s pleasure ground. In addition to the illustrated sites of fun and frolic, one sees images of crowded streets, broken carriages, and crime reminiscent of Charles Dickens or in Moll Flanders. Sewage in the streets and chamber pots were purposely illustrated to show imperfection, reality and the inconvenience of life in the 1700s, such as uncomfortable travel, with all his signature observation and wit (Figure 5 “Miseries of Travellers” below showing  crowded public conveyance in the bumptious spirit of Pieter Bruegel the Elder). It appears that regardless of the subject matter, there is an abounding, insatiable gusto of enjoyment that pervades Rowlandson’s work ( See less