The Writings of James Barry and the Genre of History Painting, 1775–1809

Examining the literary career of the eighteenth-century Irish painter James Barry through an interdisciplinary methodology, this is the first full-length study of the artist’s writings. Lenihan assesses the artist’s own aesthetic philosophy about painting and printmaking, and reveals the extent to which Barry wrestles with the significant stylistic transformations of the pre-eminent artistic genre of his age: history painting. Lenihan’s book delves into the connections between Barry’s writings and art, and the issues that dominated the public sphere in London during the American and French Revolutions.