Gilbert Stuart and the politics of fine arts patronage in Ireland, 1787-1793: A social and cultural study.
Item
-
Title
-
Gilbert Stuart and the politics of fine arts patronage in Ireland, 1787-1793: A social and cultural study.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9029927
-
identifier
-
9029927
-
Creator
-
Crean, Hugh R.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Milton Brown
-
Date
-
1990
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Fine Arts | American Studies | History, General
-
Abstract
-
This study of the six year sojourn of Gilbert Stuart in Ireland from October 1787 until March 1793 provides a dramatic illustration of the extent to which patronage of the fine arts in late eighteenth-century Ireland was dominated by political concerns. It underscores how the business of portraiture was directed by social and political issues that infiltrated the painter's studio. Stuart's successful career in Dublin illustrates the enormous degree to which partisanship dictated a painter's life.;Stuart's patrons were members of a very particular social class whose political beliefs harmonised completely with their religious and cultural values. They were a homogenous group of privileged Protestants of the Irish Ascendancy, a ruling class whose power derived directly from land ownership and parliamentary office. Their political beliefs therefore were the life-blood of their sustained Ascendancy. This conservative elite feared erosion from Protestant non-conformists and Catholics. The political identity of the group had been forged in the seventeenth century and had since become entrenched. The group's self-conscious development of antiquarian interests, sometimes alluded to in Stuart's work, accelerated during the artist's years in Ireland. This can be seen as a conscious attempt at justification and legitimization of a privileged position increasingly difficult to sustain. For Stuart, at this study reveals, Irish acceptance and patronage began with his invitation to Dublin by the Duke of Rutland, the King's representative in Ireland and leader of the Ascendancy. From the beginning, therefore, Stuart's position in Irish life as painter to that Ascendancy was clear.;In an environment where political distrust was cause for immediate ostracism, this privileged position was maintained only by Stuart's cautious choice of subject. In Stuart's Ireland political beliefs primarily defined the individual. In a society where separateness seemed the only form of co-existence, Stuart's professional life was therefore immediately and necessarily defined by his political, social and cultural role. This set of circumstances reached an apex during Stuart's years in Ireland and he most fully exemplifies the painter of Irish political subjects. It should come as no surprise then that Stuart's exit is abrupt when the political climate in Ireland changes dramatically during 1792 and 1793 because of the rise of Catholic power and the influence of the French Revolution on Irish political life.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
