Description
Book SynopsisBorn in Ruthin, Denbighshire, Edward Pugh (1763-1813) was a Welsh-speaking artist and writer who worked as a miniaturist in London, exhibiting frequently at the Royal Academy. But Pugh’s passion was the landscape, and he painted remarkable views of North Wales that not only captivate but also reveal the development of the Welsh economy and Welsh national consciousness. Pugh also wrote and illustrated a fascinating, informative, and humorous account of a tour of North Wales around 1800—one of the only travel books written at that time by someone who could actually converse with the inhabitants.
Edward Pugh of Ruthin 1763-1813 is the first book to consider the work of this nearly forgotten Welsh artist and writer in detail, linking the history of art in Wales with the social history of the country. John Barrell shows how Pugh’s pictures and writings portray rural life and social change in Wales during his lifetime, from the effects of the war with France on industry and poverty, to the need to develop and modernize the Welsh economy, to the power of the landowners. Almost all of the pictures and accounts we have today of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century North Wales were made by English artists and writers, and none of these, as Barrell demonstrates, can tell us about life in North Wales with the same depth and authenticity as does Pugh.
Trade Review"This volume on the work of Edward Pugh comes from the pen of an experienced and highly talented author. Since his first, classic publication on the poetry of John Clare in 1972, John Barrell has shown readers of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature that texts must not be read in generic isolation from the totality of the culture--social, political, economic, artistic, literary--that surrounds them. Now, his particular gift for 'reading' pictures comes to the fore in a book that adds visual art to the wide range of genres explored in the Wales and the French Revolution series."--Ceridwen Lloyd Morgan, National Library of Wales
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 Foel-Famma, from Careg Carn March Arther 2 Llanfwrog, Ruthin, and Llanbedr 3 Bathafern Hills from Coedmarchan Rocks 4 Pont-Newydd over the Ceirw near Corwen 5 A Fall on the Dee, near the Vale of Crucis 6 Pen-y-Lan, across the Dee 7 Modern Leisure in Modern London 8 Cambria Depicta: the History of the Book 9 Cambria Depicta: the People, the Past and the Present 10 Cambria Depicta: Landscape, the Sublime and the Beautiful Notes
