ABSTRACT
It might be thought that with so many world-changing events going on in the forty years between 1789 and 1830, educated debate would have little time to concern itself with such abstruse matters as the nature and purpose of art. Nothing could be further from the truth: the period saw major developments in aesthetic theory, most importantly – and in ways that connect directly with trends in literary criticism and theory – in Germany. Perhaps less surprisingly, the period was notable for vigorous and innovative activity across the full range of the visual arts, just as it was in literature. Four areas of artistic production – landscape gardening, architecture, painting, and printmaking – are discussed in this chapter. The latter is an example of how visual art could be made an explicit tool of political propaganda in the uncompromising exchanges of the Revolution debate and the mounting class hostilities of post-Waterloo Britain; but all forms of art were affected by the great events and controversies of the time and were implicated in the accompanying culture wars.
