The Post Office, 1809,
Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) after Augustus Charles Pugin (1762-1832), aquatint, hand-coloured.
Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) studied sculpture and drawing at the Royal Academy Schools in London and for a period in Paris, and later devoted himself to cartoons (3).
While European artists like Jacques-Louis David were striving to create a high-minded new classicism 200 years ago, in Britain the likes of
Thomas Rowlandson, James Gillray and Hogarth were using their talents to satirize and caricature the politicians of the day.
Between 1812 and 1814 more than 200 satirical prints targeting the French emperor and his circle appeared in Moscow and St Petersburg, some of which were reprinted in London and influenced the work of George Cruikshank,
Thomas Rowlandson and others.
Even
Thomas Rowlandson's Breaking up of the Blue Stocking Club (1815) was scarcely harsher than satirists' treatments of parliamentarians at the time.
Rosenthal intersperses her subtly suggestive close readings of works by Reynolds,
Thomas Rowlandson and Nathaniel Hone with contemporary popular verse.
He shows us the eighteenth century satire and English realism of William Hogarth and the watercolourist, Paul Sandby; and he contrasts the coarse burlesques of
Thomas Rowlandson with the return to sentimentalism in the popular prints of Francis Wheatley.
Ninette de Valois still had hankerings for a chauvinistic British tradition, with ballets based on the prints of William Hogarth and
Thomas Rowlandson, and even invited Leonide Massine to create, with dire results, a Scottish bal]et, Donald of the Burthens.
Thomas Rowlandson's A Little Tighter shows a slender man desperately struggling to lace up the stays of a porcine female.
A PEEP behind the Scenes, the life and art of
Thomas Rowlandson. Rugby Fine Arts lecture by Frances Hughes on May 24 at 8pm at the Benn Hall, Newbold Road.
Set to music by William Boyce (arranged by Constant Lambert) and with superb sets by Roger Furse (after
Thomas Rowlandson), it is a charming - and very funny - little tale of the plight of dancers in two rival theatres in the 18th century.
Further commingling takes place between these and portions of Johnson's letters to the Thrales (written during the journey), short extracts from Boswell's manuscript journal, caricatures by
Thomas Rowlandson, and arresting portraits by Allan Ramsay and others.