The Grand Tour: Three Centuries of British Difference from Italy

In a recent exhibition of international art devoted to travel, it was clear that contrasts between different destinations has given way to ephemeral processes of transition around the nowhere land of global travel. This represents a marked change of outlook from the art and literature of the Grand Tour from the seventeenth- to the late nineteenth-century in which contrast between British and Italian destinations were fundamentally meaningful, on the British side at least. 

Through a swift survey of a broad range of examples, the lecture shows how images and texts by British artists and travellers in Italy served the political identity and psychological needs of the social classes for which they were produced. It also shows how Italian artists have sometimes been complicit with - and at other times subversive towards - the British use of Italy as a mirror of its own self-regard.

Richard Read is Emeritus Professor and Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, Perth. He is widely published and presents art lectures in an engaging and informative way for all audiences.

Hosted by Tresillian Arts Centre. 

Image: Capriccio: St Paul's and a Venetian Canal, 1795, William Marlow. Tate Gallery, Purchased 1954