The Image of Antiquity: Ancient Britain and the Romantic Imagination

by Sam Smiles

How was the remote past of Britain imagined in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? What part did the visual arts play in that process? In this book Sam Smiles argues that the ancient Britain of the romantic imagination was a contested world, variously seen as a noble epoch of wisdom and patriotism and as a period of unredeemed savagery and barbarism. The arts, says Smiles, not only reflected these historical debates but actively contributed to...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300058144
• ISBN13: 9780300058147
• Release Date: September 1994
• Publisher: Paul Mellon Centre
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.8" x 10.4"