In Making The Modern Artist, Martin Myrone examines the art education offered at the Royal Academy Schools and its students' contingent careers during the years from its opening in 1769 until 1830, dates chosen to represent three generations of Academy artists during the Romantic period. He sets out terms for nothing less than ‘a new history of this period of British art’ (p.1). The book evaluates the ramifications of a developing liberal modernity for the lives and opportunities of artists, and teases apart the narrative of individualism and creativity which emerged around 1800 and continues to impact society's expectations of artistic production. The book has its origins in Myrone's essay in Living with the Royal Academy: Artistic Ideals and Experiences in England, 1768-1848 (eds. Sarah Monks, John Barrell and Mark Hallett, Ashgate, 2013, Ch.8) in which he states that ‘The Academy was a product of, and articulated (however unwittingly), the specifically capitalist formations of the artist with which we live in the modern age’ (p.173). Myrone's concentrated and meticulous research into who accessed art educational resources and who was rewarded for their efforts is reflected in many of his recent publications, for example ‘A Survey of Premiums Offered for Historical Art, 1760-99’ (William Shipley Group for RSA History, Occasional Papers No.13, 2009) and ‘Drawing after the Antique at the British Museum, 1809-1817: “Free” Art Education and the Advent of the Liberal State’, British Art Studies, Issue 5 (2017). Making the Modern Artist expands on his 2013 findings, encapsulates his exhaustive investigations, and eschews the familiar biographical narratives that foreground iconic artists such as William Blake and Thomas Gainsborough, narratives which have nevertheless provided substantial subject matter for Myrone's writing. He draws on Marxist and Weberian sociology, and in particular on Bourdieu, ‘whose methodological practice provides a guiding spirit for this study’ (p.9). He reserves specific indignation for the neat conclusions offered by Holger Hoock in The King's Artists: The Royal Academy and the Politics of British Culture, 1760-1840 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003), in which artists' potential achievements are attributed to innate talent. Myrone suggests that this indulges in ‘a pervasive fiction about individual talent which sits at the heart of liberal modernity’ (p.57). In his conclusions, he returns to Hoock's assertions, refuting that ‘the market could provide justice, that the talented would rise, the untalented sink into the trades’ (p.188). A newly marketised liberal modernity, ‘freed’ from the old paternal or workshop ties of traditional artistic apprenticeship, was characterised instead by fraternal ties, often along divisive lines of gender, culture and class. Myrone emphasises the crucial factor of family financial support which enabled students to continue their studies and cushioned them from market instability, increasingly favouring those from a genteel or professional background. His statistics appear in stark line graphs, adding the authority of indisputable numbers to a subject which often relies on broad statement, anecdote and contemporary quotation. The book outlines the failure of the Academy teachers to actually teach, the complaints about bad lighting and facilities, and ‘a form of study which was interminable and largely non-linear’, assuming that students should be responsible for their own progress (p.29). Occasionally, Myrone's collected data is deliberately deployed to counter our assumptions. It transpires that his long descriptive list of artists' suicides which opens Chapter 4, ‘The Social Suffering of the Artist’, serves to counter the ‘tortured genius’ myth of the ‘self-contradicting logic of representative exceptionalism’ (p.185). He challenges the trope of the impoverished artist in his garret, an artistic bohemian identity that deflects from serious questioning of the social reality. The case studies and sumptuous illustrations, many of which offer unfamiliar and surprising details from a wide range of sources, are themselves compelling evidence of Myrone's commitment to the subject of the book. He emphasises that his research has developed outside the structures of teaching and institutional networks, and he thus sympathises with the ‘unofficial’ historians able to function independent of the demands of liberal modernity (p.219). He characterises the book as a result of his ‘passionate hobbyism’ (p.220). Because he emphasises this approach, he is able to be selective and unapologetic. At times dwelling on intense close readings of images, and at others stating carefully argued criticism of the values and assumptions of current art historical scholarship, he conveys personal empathy with the lesser known artists who failed in their efforts to achieve success and recognition in their chosen careers. The book as such is a landmark in art history, exploring the outer reaches of artistic endeavour, and boldly re-examining the political and sociological impact of the Royal Academy's celebrated undertaking to foster the development of artistic excellence.
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Apr 6, 2023
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