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The Grand Tour: Three Centuries of British Difference from Italy

Wed, 09 Aug

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Tresillian Arts Centre

Professor Read reviews the Grand Tour (17th to 19th centuries) and the comparative dynamic between Britain and Italy through art and literature, to reflect on the new transitory experience of global travel in which we operate today.

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The Grand Tour: Three Centuries of British Difference from Italy
The Grand Tour: Three Centuries of British Difference from Italy

Time & Location

09 Aug 2023, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Tresillian Arts Centre, 21 Tyrell St, Nedlands WA 6009, Australia

About the Event

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

Tickets

  • General admission

    This ticket includes lecture, open discussion and light refreshments.

    $30.00
    Tax: GST included
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