The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt: "The Body of the Politic" (Body of the Public)

What is the function of painting in a commercial society?  John Barrell discusses how British artists and writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, William Blake, and James Barry attempted to answer this question. His provocative and illuminating book offers a new perspective on both art criticism and eighteenth-century British culture.