Browsing by Subject "Research Subject Categories::INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AREAS"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Letters from a Young Painter Abroad: James Russel in Rome, 1740-63
    (Walpole Society, 2012) Kelly, Jason M.
    James Russel was an English artist and antiquary who lived in Rome between 1740 and 1763. At one time he was among the foremost ciceroni in Italy. His patrons included Richard Mead and Edward Holdsworth. Andrew Lumisden, the Secretary to the Young Pretender, wrote that Russel was his 'ingenious friend'. Despite his centrality to the British Grand Tour community of the mid eighteenth century, scholars have virtually ignored him. Instead, they favor his fellow artists, such as Robert Adam and William Chambers, and other antiquaries, such as Thomas Jenkins, James Byres, and Gavin Hamilton. Nevertheless, Russel's career gives insight into the British community in Italy at the dawn of the golden age of the Grand Tour. His struggles as an artist reveal the conditions in which the young tyros laboured. His rise to prominence broadens what we know about both the British and Italian artistic communities in eighteenth-century Rome. And, his network of patrons reveals some of the familial and political connections that were necessary for social success in eighteenth-century Britain. In fact, the experience of James Russel reveals the importance of seeing Grand Tourist and expatriate communities as extensions of domestic social networks. Like eighteenth-century sailors who went to sea, these travelers lived in a world apart that was nevertheless intimately connected to life at home.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Riots, Revelries, and Rumor: Libertinism and Masculine Association in Enlightenment London
    (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Kelly, Jason M.
    Comparing the Calves‐Head riot of 1734/5 and with John Wilkes’s exposure of the “Medmenham Monks” in 1763, this essay formulates an historical anthropology of gossip and rumor, offering insights into the nature of London social life and political controversy during the Enlightenment. The histories of the Calves‐Head Club and Medmenham Monks show how the practices of gossip and rumor converged with, diverged from, and helped articulate discourses about class and masculinity in eighteenth‐century London. In a period in which “polite association” was increasingly challenging “masculine libertinism” as a symbol of status, the practices of rumor and gossip were important to negotiating the boundaries of proper conduct. These two events offer insight into how ideas about class and masculinity shaped eighteenth‐century associational life. In the “clubbable” world that was eighteenth‐century London, individuals’ reputations—and the gossip and rumor that surrounded them—affected their association with the multiple organizations of which they were members. This meant that the reputations and, consequently, the activities of any one club or society—even those with fundamentally different purposes—could be influenced by that of the others. Because of this, gossip and rumor in any sector of one’s life had the possibility of wide‐ranging consequences for the “associational world” of eighteenth‐century London.