All religions are one’? Myth and meaning in late 18th century British art
About this event
The late 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe are often viewed as the climax of the Age of Enlightenment, when discoveries in science and philosophy transformed Europe and America into societies dominated by reason. But much of the intellectual debate of the time still centred on religion and sacred history. We get a glimpse of this in the poetry and art of William Blake, but he is often seen as an outlier, raging against the rationalism of his contemporaries.
Starting from the drawings of his friend, the sculptor John Flaxman, this talk will explore some of the ideas around myth, history and religion which at that time fascinated not just Blake, but many other artists, writers, scientists and even politicians, across northern Europe and America. One of their aims was to discover a chronology of pre-history which would unite recorded sacred histories, including those from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and the Classical World. The talk will provide an introduction to this early, if sometimes misguided, example of multicultural awareness.
About our speaker
Chris Owen is an art historian, and Honorary Visiting Senior Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University. Chris was Head of Cambridge School of Art at ARU, from 2011 until retirement in 2019.
Image credit: John Flaxman, illustration for The Casket. Photo © Houghton Library, Harvard University
Event presented as part of the Cambridge Festival.