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James Barry (painter)

James Barry RA (11 October 1741 – 22 February 1806) was an 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 in London. 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",[1] who emerged as one of the most important Irish artists. He was also notable as a profound influence on William Blake.

James Barry
James Barry, Self-portrait, c.1775
Born(1741-10-11)11 October 1741
Died22 February 1806(1806-02-22) (aged 64)
London, England
Resting placeSt Paul's Cathedral, London
NationalityIrish
EducationJohn Butts
Known forPainting, drawing, portraits and landscapes and for being a patron of Edmund Burke
Notable workThe Progress of Human Culture (1783)
Baptism of the King of Cashel (1762)
Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida (1773)
Ulysses and his companions escaping from Polyphemus (1776)
King Lear Weeping over the Dead Body of Cordelia (1788)
MovementNeoclassicism, Romanticism
FamilyJames Barry (surgeon)

Life and work edit

 
James Barry, Self-portrait, 1803, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.

James Barry was born in Water Lane (now Seminary Road) on the northside of Cork, 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.[2] 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.[3]

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. While in Italy, he became friendly with the Scottish painter Alexander Runciman and the Swedish sculptor Tobias Sergel.[4] 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.

 
Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida, City Art Galleries, Sheffield

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. His Death 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.

 
King Lear mourns Cordelia's death, 1786–88

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[5] 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".[citation needed]

 
The Death of Milo of Crotona

Soon after his return from the continent Barry was chosen a member of the Royal Academy of Arts; and in 1782 he was appointed professor of painting in the room of Edward 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 Brendan Neiland in July 2004.

 
The Thames or Triumph of Navigation

During his time at the Royal Academy of Arts, Barry painted The Thames (or Triumph of Navigation) in 1791,[6] 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.[7] 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.[8]

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.

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ David Bindman, ‘Barry at the Tate’ [review], The Burlington Magazine, vol.125, no.961, April 1983, pp. 240–42 (240).
  2. ^ . Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
  3. ^ Bindman 1983:241.
  4. ^ Macmillan, Duncan (2023), Scotland and the Origins of Modern Art, Lund Humphries, London, pp. 65 -84, ISBN 978-1-84822-633-3
  5. ^ Unknown (1800). A Description of the series of pictures painted by James Barry, Esq. And preserved in the great room of the society instituted at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. London: W & C Spilsbury. p. 30.
  6. ^ Painting - The Thames . Archived from the original on 1 April 2012. Retrieved 16 December 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  7. ^ Now at Manchester.
  8. ^ "Memorials of St Paul's Cathedral" Sinclair, W. p. 465: London; Chapman & Hall, Ltd; 1909.

References edit

  • Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Barry, James" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  • Pressly, William L. (1983). James Barry: The Artist as Hero. London: The Tate Gallery. ISBN 0-905005-09-0 (Catalogue of the 1983 exhibition)
  • Pressly, William, L. (1985). "Portrait of a Cork Family: The Two James Barrys" (PDF). Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. 90: 127–149. Retrieved 15 September 2022.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links edit

  • 17 artworks by or after James Barry at the Art UK site
  • Webb, Alfred (1878). "Barry, James" . A Compendium of Irish Biography. Dublin: M. H. Gill & son.
  • The Correspondence of James Barry 7 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, new, annotated digital edition of all of Barry's known correspondence, edited by Tim McLoughlin.
  • 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.
  • Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections

james, barry, painter, james, barry, october, 1741, february, 1806, irish, painter, best, remembered, part, series, paintings, entitled, progress, human, culture, great, room, royal, society, arts, london, because, determination, create, according, principles,. James Barry RA 11 October 1741 22 February 1806 was an 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 in London 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 1 who emerged as one of the most important Irish artists He was also notable as a profound influence on William Blake James BarryJames Barry Self portrait c 1775Born 1741 10 11 11 October 1741Cork IrelandDied22 February 1806 1806 02 22 aged 64 London EnglandResting placeSt Paul s Cathedral LondonNationalityIrishEducationJohn ButtsKnown forPainting drawing portraits and landscapes and for being a patron of Edmund BurkeNotable workThe Progress of Human Culture 1783 Baptism of the King of Cashel 1762 Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida 1773 Ulysses and his companions escaping from Polyphemus 1776 King Lear Weeping over the Dead Body of Cordelia 1788 MovementNeoclassicism RomanticismFamilyJames Barry surgeon Contents 1 Life and work 2 See also 3 Notes 4 References 5 External linksLife and work edit nbsp James Barry Self portrait 1803 oil on canvas National Gallery of Ireland Dublin James Barry was born in Water Lane now Seminary Road on the northside of Cork 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 2 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 3 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 While in Italy he became friendly with the Scottish painter Alexander Runciman and the Swedish sculptor Tobias Sergel 4 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 nbsp Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida City Art Galleries Sheffield 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 His Death 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 nbsp King Lear mourns Cordelia s death 1786 88 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 5 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 citation needed nbsp The Death of Milo of Crotona Soon after his return from the continent Barry was chosen a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and in 1782 he was appointed professor of painting in the room of Edward 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 Brendan Neiland in July 2004 nbsp The Thames or Triumph of Navigation During his time at the Royal Academy of Arts Barry painted The Thames or Triumph of Navigation in 1791 6 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 7 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 8 The 1911 Encyclopaedia 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 See also edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Barry British art English school of painting Irish art List of people on stamps of IrelandNotes edit David Bindman Barry at the Tate review The Burlington Magazine vol 125 no 961 April 1983 pp 240 42 240 James Barry RA Crawford Art Gallery Cork Archived from the original on 21 July 2011 Retrieved 18 December 2010 Bindman 1983 241 Macmillan Duncan 2023 Scotland and the Origins of Modern Art Lund Humphries London pp 65 84 ISBN 978 1 84822 633 3 Unknown 1800 A Description of the series of pictures painted by James Barry Esq And preserved in the great room of the society instituted at London for the Encouragement of Arts Manufactures and Commerce London W amp C Spilsbury p 30 Painting The Thames The Thames or the Triumph of Navigation by James Barry 1741 1806 Port communities Port Cities Archived from the original on 1 April 2012 Retrieved 16 December 2010 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link Now at Manchester Memorials of St Paul s Cathedral Sinclair W p 465 London Chapman amp Hall Ltd 1909 References editChisholm Hugh ed 1911 Barry James Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th ed Cambridge University Press Pressly William L 1983 James Barry The Artist as Hero London The Tate Gallery ISBN 0 905005 09 0 Catalogue of the 1983 exhibition Pressly William L 1985 Portrait of a Cork Family The Two James Barrys PDF Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 90 127 149 Retrieved 15 September 2022 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link External links edit17 artworks by or after James Barry at the Art UK site Webb Alfred 1878 Barry James A Compendium of Irish Biography Dublin M H Gill amp son The Correspondence of James Barry Archived 7 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine 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 Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title James Barry painter amp oldid 1192807399, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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