how did artist sometimes flatter their wealthy patrons
Answers
Explanation:
The beginnings of the 18th cent. saw increasing political patronage of the arts. The Kit Kat Club, a group of in- fluential Whigs, whose members included the writers Congreve and Addison, artists Vanbrugh and Kneller, and politicians Walpole and Newcastle, extended patronage over all aspects of art and music. Among traditional patrons, returning grand tourists commissioned or rebuilt great houses, and filled them with decoration, paintings, sculpture, silverware, and furniture. Chandos was patron to Handel and the duke of Richmond patron to Canaletto, who spent nine years in England. Lord Burlington befriended William Kent, financed his publications, and collaborated on several of his Palladian designs. George I and George II enjoyed music and patronized Handel and the opera, and employed the sculptors Rysbrack and Roubiliac.
Increasing prosperity meant a role in patronage for the general public. The Three Choirs Festival of Worcester, Gloucester, and Hereford was founded in 1713; books were published by subscription; prints and engravings and later caricatures from artists like Hogarth and Rowlandson sold in large numbers. New money from industry went into the arts: Wedgwood the potter was patron of George Stubbs and Joseph Wright of Derby. In the 19th cent. the Pre-Raphaelites found support among the industrialists of the midlands and north of England, and throughout the century wealthy art lovers like Angerstein, Tate, and Wallace made generous gifts to public galleries. At a lower level, the newly formed borough and county councils filled their foyers with sculptures and their corridors with portraits of chairmen, mayors, and aldermen.
Patronage of art is now institutionalized. Few individuals in a century of heavy taxation have the wealth to support the arts but royalty still sits for portraits, even if the commissioning organization pays the artist. New town corporations place lonely sculptures on wind-swept grassy banks. But in the main it is orchestras or bodies like the BBC who commission new music, and universities which find funds for painters or poets in residence. Funding comes from a diversity of sources, from the Arts Council to the National Lottery. An artist is unlikely to have a home provided by a patron. He will be paid but not by a long-term stipend. He may receive the freedom of a city but not a government office. He retains his independence, which Dr Johnson valued more than a patron, ‘who supports with insolence and is paid with flattery’.
June Cochrane
The patron served a fundamental function in the development of art in early modern Europe. In addition to being an active consumer of art, he was its initiator, often dictating form and content. Art patronage functioned as proof of wealth, status, and power and could also serve purposes of propaganda and entertainment. Conversely, influential contacts were essential to an artist's well-being.
Patronage was formalized by contracts defining cost, materials, dimensions, artist's participation, content, and time line; a sketch of the project was often demanded. Alternatively, secular and religious princes could retain artists on a monthly allowance, offering them board and provisions as court residents.
In his explanation of cause and effect, Aristotle defined the position of the patron when he distinguished the efficient cause (the artist) and the formal cause (the art object) from the final cause (the patron). The patron offered forms of support that placed him beyond the level of customer, but the balance between patron and artist was never equal and was often a source of tension.
Patronage changed as early modern institutions such as the city, capitalism, and minted coinage developed, leading to an enlarged world of goods, social diffusion of taste, a variety of new forms, namely, to a broad expanse of material culture with a demand for durable goods. For a full understanding of a patron's extravagance, it is necessary to assemble an accounting from his largesse in church construction, desired prestige in palace construction, and temporary decorations for state visits, festivals, dynastic marriages, and political exchanges. Political and social pressures were factors in limiting lavish display. In Venice and Florence, merchants were restrained in their patronage by sumptuary laws, which went so far as to limit the cost and color of clothing and the amount of jewelry worn.