Writing in her 2009 study, Brilliant Effects, Marcia Pointon asserts that visual satirists of eighteenth-century London used their medium to communicate an element of ‘truth’ in their work, despite it being a satirised one. This sentiment endures in the Royal Collection’s current exhibition, on display at The Queen’s Gallery, the Palace of Holyroodhouse: High Spirits: The Comic Art of Thomas Rowlandson. Through a selection of some of the thousands of satirical prints in the Royal Collection, the exhibition explores Rowlandson and the underlying ‘truth’ of the culture in which he lived through his unabashed humour and incisive observation, communicated to a broad spectrum of viewers: from the urban poor to the rural gentry.
Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) began his artistic career with grand ambitions, training at the Royal Academy. His talents for capturing, and comically exaggerating, physiognomy encouraged the aspiring artist to pursue graphic satire; by the early 1780s his career in this line flourished. This is where the exhibition commences. Juxtaposed with a handful of later prints (c. 1790-1800) which capture ‘high spirits’, are the artist’s earliest efforts, which predate the distinctive style he later developed. Here we see the young satirist’s position in the shadow of Hogarth; in Midnight Conversation (c. 1780) Rowlandson directly quotes A Rake’s Progress (1735). The exhibition then leads to a selection of satires exploring the print market and visitors are also introduced to the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and his role as a consumer and connoisseur of satirical prints. Indeed, most of the works on display belonged to the prince. After situating the artist and his market – critical in introducing non-specialist visitors to the complex context and Rowlandson’s broad consumer base – the exhibition superimposes a thematic exploration of the later-half of George III’s reign over a broadly chronological format.
The display affords a seamless narrative exploring the bewildering social and political milieu of the late-eighteenth century period through Rowlandson’s highly-tuned satirical eye. While Rowlandson aficionados may be disappointed that High Spirits’ child-friendly atmosphere (a loud animation can be heard throughout the space) has prevented the display of some of Rowlandson’s more risqué prints which titillated elite male viewers, it nevertheless captures the artist’s vivacious and encompassing insight. Gender issues are most apparent in a selection of some of the hundreds of prints documenting the Westminster Election of 1784, published in April and May of that year. This theme and the following chronological section exploring the Regency Crisis demonstrate the mercenary aspect of the satirical print market; how both artists and publishers crossed political lines where there was a profit to be had. It is in the non-partisan Scenes of Everyday Life selection of works that the exhibition flounders despite usefully flagging Rowlandson’s versatility outside of the satirical mode. Two large paired watercolours, An English Review and A French Review (1786) contrasting the sprawling onlookers at the respective military reviews, are relegated to opposite ends of the long gallery, preventing the implicit comparison that Rowlandson was urging his contemporary viewers to make. The large etching, Rachel Pringle of Barbadoes [sic] (1796) hanging nearby, is cited as unique due to its ‘high quality’, a jarring statement considering its close proximity to An English Review, a grander and more highly-finished piece.
The exhibition as a whole, however, excels in presenting satirical prints as sites of cultural inscription – a significant contribution to furthering public knowledge of these infrequently exhibited media. The elite consumption of Rowlandson’s prints that is immediately established in the beginning of the display is further demonstrated through labels listing each print’s provenance. Often misconstrued as cheap ephemera, Rowlandson’s prints passed through high society’s drawing rooms as well as amusing the humble tradesman, and even the dispossessed in print shop windows. All of the prints exhibited were purchased by members of the royal family – whether Rowlandson’s contemporary, the Prince of Wales, or a descendent – demonstrating the status of Rowlandson’s work as an elite commodity although undermining the discussion of its wider social circulation. The exhibition’s crowning piece is a folding screen dating from 1806-07, allegedly made by the publisher S.W. Fores, which offers further insight into the consumerism of prints from the period. Amateur crafters and collectors would cut and paste arrangements of collected prints on decorative furniture, such as this screen, or onto walls in a designated room, removing the figures from their context to create a unique construction. Because of their ‘low art’ associations, pieces like this screen and decoupaged print rooms, now buried under layers of paint, tend to be more ephemeral than the prints used to decorate them; those that survive are rarely seen. Here we can see how satirical prints were embedded in eighteenth-century visual culture more broadly: reused, reconfigured and incorporated into everyday objects – the appeal of the satirical print transcended its paper-based original form. Although the screen only contains a few of Rowlandson’s works, it also functions to introduce his satirist contemporaries to viewers, inherently allowing comparisons to be drawn between artists and highlighting the variety in the print market.
The elephant in the room of this Royal Collection exhibition is the lack of a designated theme concerning Rowlandson’s representation of members of the royal family. The impressive exhibition catalogue acknowledges this subject, dedicating a whole chapter to George III’s family as portrayed in satirical prints, yet the exhibition chooses to instead focus on two royal scandals: the Regency Crisis and the resignation of the Duke of York (second son of George III). After its animated ‘high spirits’ opening, the exhibition has a more sombre end, concluding with an assortment of Continental Europe-themed prints mostly centred on the mutable government in France. Merging the selection of prints related to Duke of York with other works featuring the royal family may have better consummated the exhibition as well as brought in a sense of continuity to modern-day political cartoons, to which, as HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, notes in his foreword to the catalogue, members of the royal family are still subjected.
Attention to Rowlandson and the satirical genre as an effective means of studying the eighteenth century has been steadily increasing through scholarship and, more recently, exhibitions. He was one of the foremost graphic artists working at a time when satirists no longer had to protect themselves with anonymity and, as Rowlandson’s lengthy career proves, could establish themselves with this form of artistic production. High Spirits’ appeal lies in its encompassing display of Rowlandson’s work, which aims to survey his output rather than explore personal narrative or challenge past scholarship. It admirably introduces unfamiliar visitors with the print market and Rowlandson’s expertise in capturing his vast array of subjects, while long-standing Rowlandson enthusiasts will surely enjoy the display of well-known and more unfamiliar works.
High Spirits: The Comic Art of Thomas Rowlandson is at The Queen’s Gallery, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, from 22 November 2013 to 2 March 2014. The exhibition will also be shown at the Holburne Museum, Bath, 27 September 2014 to 25 January 2015, and at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London, in 2015.