Royal Academy Exhibition of 1836

Napoleon and Pius VII at Fontainebleau by David Wilkie

The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1836 was the annual Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy of Arts running from 2 May to 16 July 1836. It featured more than a thousand submissions from leading artists and architects.[1]

It was the notable as the last exhibition to be held at Somerset House in London, home to the Royal Academy since 1780, before it moved to new premises at the recently constructed National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. In recognition of this John Constable submitted a landscape painting Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds paying tribute to the first President of the Royal Academy Joshua Reynolds and the art collector Sir George Beaumont, both of whom were associated with the Somerset House era. It was also to be Constable's final appearance at the academy as he died before the opening of the following year's Exhibition of 1837.

Constable's rival J. M. W. Turner exhibited three oil paintings but came under a fierce attack from critic of the Edinburgh-based Blackwood's Magazine, particularly his Juliet and her Nurse.[2] The attack led Turner's admirer John Ruskin to launch a defence leading to his influential five-volume Modern Painters.[3]

In portraiture the current President of the academy Martin Archer Shee displayed two paintings commissioned to hang in the Waterloo Chamber of Windsor Castle, commemorating the victory in the Napoleonic Wars two decades earlier.[4] Although The Times was critical of the general quality of portraits displayed that year Margaret Sarah Carpenter's Portrait of Ada Lovelace was particularly praised.[5]

The Scottish artist David Wilkie submitted the history paintings Napoleon and Pius VII at Fontainebleau, and The Duke of Wellington Writing Dispatches both featuring scenes from the Napoleonic Wars. He also displayed the genre work The Peep-o'-Day Boys' Cabin inspired by a recent visit to Ireland.[6] George Jones submitted Godiva's Return, a sequel to his 1833 painting Godiva Preparing to Ride through Coventry.[7]

See also

References

Bibliography

  • Bailey, Anthony. John Constable: A Kingdom of his Own. Random House, 2012.
  • Hamilton, James. Constable: A Portrait. Hachette UK, 2022.
  • Hamilton, James. Turner: A Life. Sceptre, 1998.
  • Tromans, Nicholas. David Wilkie: The People's Painter. Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
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