Painting and Social Identity in Eighteenth-Century Italy. 3

The Artistic Community in Rome.

The idea of an artistic community in Rome can be traced back to the 17th century when there was a huge cultural and national mix of painters working in the city. However, Rome never really became a truly European artistic community until the late 18th century. If an artist wanted to address his work to a “European rather than a national or regional constituency” he or she would find no better time than then.¹ This international circle of connoisseurs and the culture of antiquity in Rome is perfectly captured in the over-elegant portraits of Pompeo Batoni which generally show rich aristocrats in sumptuous rooms surrounded by antiquities. Getting one’s picture painted by Batoni would be the highlight of many a milordi on the Grand Tour.² The British in Rome were a very incestuous group: they often travelled together, had attended the same schools, and frequented the same circle of agents and antiquarians who all visited the same palaces and monuments. Yet this artistic society was far from what Canova called the “democracy of art.” As in any competitive environment, enmity was present. The English painter James Northcote who went on the Grand Tour had no illusions: “no people hate, envy and despise each other like painters.”

1 Crask, Art in Europe, 142.

2 Edgar Peters Brown and Peter Bjorn Kerber, Pompeo Batoni: Prince of Painters in Eighteenth- Century Rome, exh. cat, Houston and London, Yale, 2008.