Johnathan Richardson's art theory: The canon of history painting and its preeminent realization in Raphael's cartoons
In 1715, when Richardson published An Essay on The Theory of Painting, he established English leadership in the writing of theoretical treatises on art. Prior to this time, no Englishman had produced a distinctive and comprehensive explanation of art theory or an essay that was of equal stature to those long produced on the continent, particularly in Italy and France, during the previous three centuries. With the publication of his succeeding essays, The Art of Criticism and The Science of a Connoisseur, which were published in one volume as The Two Discourses, 1719, and in An Account of Some of the Statues, Bas Reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy, 1722, Richardson's prominence in the field was fixed.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign