 |
|
 |
|
The ideas of the Enlightenment – of liberty, individuality and the age of reason – started to bridge the boundaries between the different classes that made up society in Georgian England. According to the liberal ideas of the period, every man, whatever his wealth or background, had the right to happiness and the right to become whatever he wanted to be. (For women, reality was somewhat different.)
|
|
A flowering of literature, architecture, theatre, music and art, which explored the promise of this philosophy, was accessible to more of the population than ever before. Architecture ranged from the elegant classical terraces of Bath, where the rich and fashionable gathered to see and be seen, to a hotch-potch of styles – neo-classical, Rococo, Gothic, chinoiserie and Greek – that developed as the middle class experimented with its new-found wealth.
|
|
In Tudor and Stuart times, the arts had been centred on the court and was dependent on wealthy patrons. In the Georgian period, however, paintings could be seen at public exhibitions. These were held at the Royal Academy, which opened in 1768, and at the Foundling Hospital, where William Hogarth (1697-1764) exhibited his work and encouraged other successful artists of the day to do likewise, to raise funds for the abandoned children there.
|
|
|
