Author : Morris R. Brownell
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)
Book Synopsis Samuel Johnson's Attitude to the Arts by : Morris R. Brownell
Download or read book Samuel Johnson's Attitude to the Arts written by Morris R. Brownell and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1989 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges the traditional view that Johnson knew and cared little about the fine arts. Brownell goes beyond pejorative anecdotes that exaggerate and misrepresent Johnson's attitudes toward music, painting, architecture, and landscape gardening, and presents evidence that Johnson was thoroughly familiar with the arts of his time, contributing to their patronage as something of a Handelian, friend of painters and architects, and a student of landscape more discerning than William Gilpin. Showing that Johnson's repeated expressions of disgust for the arts were part of a Socratic pretense designed to tease and challenge his contemporaries, the book illustrates that he deliberately chose to play the iconoclast at the very moment when the arts were reviving in England, when taste was becoming de rigeur, and the Royal Academy was being founded.