James Barry (painter)
Encyclopedia
James Barry Irish
painter
, best remembered for his six part series of paintings entitled The Progress of Human Culture in the Great Room of the Royal Society of Arts
. Because of his determination to create art according to his own principles rather than those of his patrons, he is also noted for being one of the earliest romantic
painters working in Britain, though as an artist few rated him highly until the fully comprehensive 1983 exhibition at the Tate Gallery
led to a reassessment of this "notoriously belligerent personality", who emerges as one of the most important Irish Neoclassical
artists. He was also a profound influence on William Blake
.
, Ireland
on 11 October 1741. His father had been a builder, and, at one time of his life, a coasting trader between England
and Ireland. Barry actually made several voyages as a boy, but convinced his father to let him study drawing and art. He first studied painting under local artist John Butts. At the schools in Cork to which he was sent he was regarded as a prodigy
. About the age of seventeen he first attempted oil-painting, and between that and the age of twenty-two, when he first went to Dublin, he produced several large pictures, which decorated his father's house, such as Aeneas escaping with his Family from the Flames of Troy, Susanna and the Elders and Daniel in the Lions' Den".
The painting that first brought him into public notice, and gained him the acquaintance and patronage of Edmund Burke
, was founded on an old tradition of the landing of St Patrick
on the sea-coast of Cashel
, (this is a mistake reproduced from another source, Cashel is an inland town far from the sea) and of the conversion and Baptism of the King of Cashel It was exhibited in London
in 1762 or 1763 and rediscovered in the 1980s, in unexhibitable condition.
By the liberality of Burke and his other friends, Barry in the latter part of 1765 was enabled to go abroad. He went first to Paris
, then to Rome
, where he remained upwards of three years, from Rome to Florence
and Bologna
, and thence home through Venice
. His letters to the Burkes, giving an account of Raphael, Michelangelo
, Titian
and Leonardo da Vinci
, show remarkable insight. Barry painted two pictures while abroad, an Adam and Eve
and a Philoctetes
.
Soon after his return to England in 1771 he produced his picture of Venus
, which was compared to the Galatea of Raphael, the Venus of Titian and the Venus de Medici. In 1773 he exhibited his Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida (illustration, above right). His of General Wolfe, in which the British and French soldiers are represented in very primitive costumes, was considered as a falling-off from his great style of art. His fondness for Greek costume was assigned by his admirers as the cause of his reluctance to paint portraits. His failure to go on with a portrait of Edmund Burke
which he had begun caused a misunderstanding with his early patron. The difference between them is said to have been widened by Burke’s growing intimacy with Sir Joshua Reynolds
, and by Barry’s jealousy of the fame and fortune of his rival “in a humbler walk of the art.” About the same time he painted a pair of classical subjects, Mercury inventing the lyre, and Narcissus, the last suggested to him by Burke. He also painted a historical picture of Chiron and Achilles, and another of the story of Stratonice, for which last the duke of Richmond gave him a hundred guineas.
In 1773 it was proposed to decorate the interior of St Paul’s with historical and sacred subjects; but the plan fell to the ground, from not meeting with the agreement of the bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury
. Barry was upset by the failure, for he had in anticipation fixed the subject he intended to paint — the rejection of Christ by the Jews when Pilate proposes his release. In 1773 he published An Inquiry into the real and imaginary Obstructions to the Acquisition of the Arts in England, vindicating the capacity of the English for the fine arts and tracing their slow progress to the Reformation, to political and civil dissensions, and lastly to the general direction of the public mind to mechanics, manufactures and commerce.
In 1774 a proposal was made through Valentine Green to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin West
, Cipriani
, Barry, and other artists to ornament the Great Room of the Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (now the Royal Society of Arts
), in London's Adelphi, with historical and allegorical paintings. This proposal was at the time rejected by the artists; but in 1777 Barry made an offer to paint the whole on condition that he was allowed the choice of his subjects, and that he would be paid by the society the costs of canvas, paints and models. His offer was accepted. He finished the series of pictures after seven years to the satisfaction of the members of the society, who granted him two exhibitions, and at subsequent periods voted him 50 guineas, a gold medal, and a further 200 guineas. Barry regularly returned to the series for more than a decade, making changes and inserting new features. The series of six paintings - The progress of human knowledge and culture - has been described by critic Andrew Graham-Dixon
as "Britain's late, great answer to the Sistine Chapel".
Soon after his return from the continent Barry had been chosen a member of the Royal Academy of Arts; and in 1782 he was appointed professor of painting in the room of Mr Penny with a salary of £30 a year. Among other things, he insisted on the necessity of purchasing a collection of pictures by the best masters as models for the students, and proposed several of those in the Orleans collection
. This recommendation was not relished, and in 1799 Barry was expelled from the Academy soon after the appearance of his Letter to the Dilettanti Society, an eccentric publication, full of enthusiasm for his art and at the same time of contempt for the living professors of it. Barry remained the only academician ever to be expelled by the Academy until Professor Brendan Neiland
resigned in July 2004.
During his time at the Royal Academy of Arts, Barry painted The Thames (or Triumph of Navigation) in 1791, which featured the English music historian [Charles Burney].
After the loss of his salary, a subscription was set on foot by the Earl of Buchan
to relieve him from his difficulties, and to settle him in a larger house to finish his picture of Pandora. The subscription amounted to £1000, with which an annuity was bought, but on 6 February 1806 he was seized with illness and died on the 22nd of the same month. On 4 March his remains were interred in St Paul’s Cathedral, London.
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica has this to say:
Barry also mastered the art of aquatint
.
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, best remembered for his six part series of paintings entitled The Progress of Human Culture in the Great Room of the Royal Society of Arts
Royal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...
. Because of his determination to create art according to his own principles rather than those of his patrons, he is also noted for being one of the earliest romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
painters working in Britain, though as an artist few rated him highly until the fully comprehensive 1983 exhibition at the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
led to a reassessment of this "notoriously belligerent personality", who emerges as one of the most important Irish Neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
artists. He was also a profound influence on William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
.
Biography
James Barry was born in Water Lane, CorkCork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
on 11 October 1741. His father had been a builder, and, at one time of his life, a coasting trader between England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Ireland. Barry actually made several voyages as a boy, but convinced his father to let him study drawing and art. He first studied painting under local artist John Butts. At the schools in Cork to which he was sent he was regarded as a prodigy
Child prodigy
A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...
. About the age of seventeen he first attempted oil-painting, and between that and the age of twenty-two, when he first went to Dublin, he produced several large pictures, which decorated his father's house, such as Aeneas escaping with his Family from the Flames of Troy, Susanna and the Elders and Daniel in the Lions' Den".
The painting that first brought him into public notice, and gained him the acquaintance and patronage of Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, was founded on an old tradition of the landing of St Patrick
Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland, although Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille are also formally patron saints....
on the sea-coast of Cashel
Cashel, County Galway
Cashel is a village in County Galway, in the province of Connacht, Ireland. It is located west of Galway city and southeast of Clifden, on the coast.-History:...
, (this is a mistake reproduced from another source, Cashel is an inland town far from the sea) and of the conversion and Baptism of the King of Cashel It was exhibited in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1762 or 1763 and rediscovered in the 1980s, in unexhibitable condition.
By the liberality of Burke and his other friends, Barry in the latter part of 1765 was enabled to go abroad. He went first to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, then to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, where he remained upwards of three years, from Rome to Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, and thence home through Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
. His letters to the Burkes, giving an account of Raphael, Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
and Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
, show remarkable insight. Barry painted two pictures while abroad, an Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
and a Philoctetes
Philoctetes
Philoctetes or Philocthetes according to Greek mythology, the son of King Poeas of Meliboea in Thessaly. He was a Greek hero, famed as an archer, and was a participant in the Trojan War. He was the subject of at least two plays by Sophocles, one of which is named after him, and one each by both...
.
Soon after his return to England in 1771 he produced his picture of Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
, which was compared to the Galatea of Raphael, the Venus of Titian and the Venus de Medici. In 1773 he exhibited his Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida (illustration, above right). His of General Wolfe, in which the British and French soldiers are represented in very primitive costumes, was considered as a falling-off from his great style of art. His fondness for Greek costume was assigned by his admirers as the cause of his reluctance to paint portraits. His failure to go on with a portrait of Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
which he had begun caused a misunderstanding with his early patron. The difference between them is said to have been widened by Burke’s growing intimacy with Sir Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
, and by Barry’s jealousy of the fame and fortune of his rival “in a humbler walk of the art.” About the same time he painted a pair of classical subjects, Mercury inventing the lyre, and Narcissus, the last suggested to him by Burke. He also painted a historical picture of Chiron and Achilles, and another of the story of Stratonice, for which last the duke of Richmond gave him a hundred guineas.
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
. Barry was upset by the failure, for he had in anticipation fixed the subject he intended to paint — the rejection of Christ by the Jews when Pilate proposes his release. In 1773 he published An Inquiry into the real and imaginary Obstructions to the Acquisition of the Arts in England, vindicating the capacity of the English for the fine arts and tracing their slow progress to the Reformation, to political and civil dissensions, and lastly to the general direction of the public mind to mechanics, manufactures and commerce.
In 1774 a proposal was made through Valentine Green to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin West
Benjamin West
Benjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...
, Cipriani
Giovanni Battista Cipriani
Giovanni Battista Cipriani , Italian painter and engraver, Pistoiese by descent, was born in Florence.-History:His first lessons were given him by a Florentine of English descent, Ignatius Hugford, and then under Anton Domenico Gabbiani...
, Barry, and other artists to ornament the Great Room of the Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (now the Royal Society of Arts
Royal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...
), in London's Adelphi, with historical and allegorical paintings. This proposal was at the time rejected by the artists; but in 1777 Barry made an offer to paint the whole on condition that he was allowed the choice of his subjects, and that he would be paid by the society the costs of canvas, paints and models. His offer was accepted. He finished the series of pictures after seven years to the satisfaction of the members of the society, who granted him two exhibitions, and at subsequent periods voted him 50 guineas, a gold medal, and a further 200 guineas. Barry regularly returned to the series for more than a decade, making changes and inserting new features. The series of six paintings - The progress of human knowledge and culture - has been described by critic Andrew Graham-Dixon
Andrew Graham-Dixon
Andrew Michael Graham-Dixon is a British art historian and broadcaster.-Education:Graham-Dixon was educated at the independent Westminster School and at Christ Church at the University of Oxford, where he read English...
as "Britain's late, great answer to the Sistine Chapel".
Orleans Collection
The Orleans Collection was a very important collection of over 500 paintings formed by the French prince of the blood Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans, mostly acquired between about 1700 and his death in 1723...
. This recommendation was not relished, and in 1799 Barry was expelled from the Academy soon after the appearance of his Letter to the Dilettanti Society, an eccentric publication, full of enthusiasm for his art and at the same time of contempt for the living professors of it. Barry remained the only academician ever to be expelled by the Academy until Professor Brendan Neiland
Brendan Neiland
Professor Brendan Neiland is an English artist best known for his paintings of reflections in modern city buildings. In 1992 he was elected into the Royal Academy ....
resigned in July 2004.
During his time at the Royal Academy of Arts, Barry painted The Thames (or Triumph of Navigation) in 1791, which featured the English music historian [Charles Burney].
After the loss of his salary, a subscription was set on foot by the Earl of Buchan
Earl of Buchan
The Mormaer or Earl of Buchan was originally the provincial ruler of the medieval province of Buchan. Buchan was the first Mormaerdom in the High Medieval Kingdom of the Scots to pass into the hands of a non-Scottish family in the male line. The earldom had three lines in its history, not counting...
to relieve him from his difficulties, and to settle him in a larger house to finish his picture of Pandora. The subscription amounted to £1000, with which an annuity was bought, but on 6 February 1806 he was seized with illness and died on the 22nd of the same month. On 4 March his remains were interred in St Paul’s Cathedral, London.
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica has this to say:
- As an artist, Barry was more distinguished for the strength of his conceptions, and for his resolute and persistent determination to apply himself only to great subjects, than for his skill in designing or for beauty in his colouring. His drawing is not especially good, his colouring ordinary. He was impulsive; sometimes morose, sometimes sociable and urbane; jealous of his contemporaries, and yet capable of pronouncing a splendid eulogy on Reynolds.
Barry also mastered the art of aquatint
Aquatint
Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching.Intaglio printmaking makes marks on the matrix that are capable of holding ink. The inked plate is passed through a printing press together with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to the paper...
.
External links
- The Correspondence of James Barry, new, annotated digital edition of all of Barry's known correspondence, edited by Tim McLoughlin.
- A National Treasure in New Brunswick: James Barry's Death of General Wolfe
- The Collected works of James Barry is located at the Special Collections/Digital Library in Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova University.
- James Barry at Find-A-Grave
- A diary of sorts digitized by the Crawford Art Gallery. This book is currently stored at UCC.
See also
- British artBritish artBritish art could refer to:* Art of the United Kingdom - post 1707* English art* Irish art* Scottish art* Welsh art...
- English school of painting
- Irish artIrish artThe early history of Irish art is generally considered to begin with early carvings found at sites such as Newgrange and is traced through Bronze Age artefacts, particularly ornamental gold objects, and the religious carvings and illuminated manuscripts of the medieval period...
- List of people on stamps of Ireland