![]() ![]() Kauffman was most famously a history painter – that is, she painted epic scenes from history and literature – which was seen as the highest form of painting and was extremely unusual for a female artist. She was hugely successful and built up a pan-European reputation. Kauffman was a child prodigy in music as well as painting, did a stint of training in Italy, and then, finding that most of her best customers/patrons were English, moved to London when she was twenty. Chur in those days was the capital of the Three Leagues, a strange and fascinating early-modern polity that didn't get fully assimilated into Switzerland until Napoleon invaded – but that's another story. One of those Swiss founder-members was Angelica Kauffman, who was born in the misty Alpine city of Chur in 1741. I suppose London at the time was the world city that drew aspiring up-and-comers from all trades. ![]() Two of the founder members were from Switzerland, one other was from a Swiss family – and then there was Henry Fuseli, who joined a little later but went on to become the RA's Keeper and Professor of Painting. It's curious how prominent Swiss artists were in the formation of Britain's Royal Academy of Arts. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |