Crossing the Channel: British and French Painting in the Age of Romanticism

Hardcover |24.13 x 2.54 x 30.48 cm | 296 pp

Tate publishing | 2003 | 9781854375131 

This magnificent catalogue of a 2003 exhibition at Tate Britain deals mainly with painting and brings together works by major figures such as Constable, Delacroix, Turner and Vernet to explore how artists from each country influenced their counterparts on the other side of the Channel.

After years of wartime stand-off, the period of high Romanticism (1820-1840) was one of fervent cultural exchange between France and Britain. In the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, British artists contributed regularly to Paris Salons, shared studios with French colleagues, collaborated with Parisian print publishers, and served as drawing masters to the French aristocracy. Tourists from both countries criss-crossed the channel.

Watercolour painting, in which the British excelled, caught the imagination of French
painters and collectors for the first time, and France was swept by enthusiasm for British literature: the publication of Scott’s historical romance lvanhoe in 1819 caused as much of a sensation in Paris as the exhibition of Géicault’s painting The Raft of the Medusa did in London the following year.

Although some British influence on French painters is generally acknowledged, its full extent had never been the subject of a major exhibition. Conceived by Patrick Noon, This book and the exhibition it accompanied brought together works
by such major figures as Constable, Corot, Delacroix, Géricault, Lawrence, Ingres,
Bonington, Turner, Vermet and Wilkie. These icons of Romanticism both reflected
contemporary cultural exchanges and helped set the agenda of modernism for later
generations.

This fully illustrated catalogue is authored by Patrick Noon with Stephen Bann, David Blayney Brown, Rachel Meredith, Christine Riding and Marie Watteau.