"Painting is Welcome"

Alternative title: Recreating the Boydell Gallery
Synopsis: Podcast from the Folger Shakespeare Library. In the decades after Shakespeare’s death, his works fell out of favour. His renaissance is usually credited to actor-manager David Garrick, who staged a Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769. Riding Garrick’s coattails, an artistic entrepreneur named John Boydell later opened one of England’s first art galleries, devoted to paintings of scenes from Shakespeare plays. The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery has now been recreated online at www.whatjanesaw.org. Janine Barchas, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin and co-curator of the Folger’s upcoming exhibition, Will & Jane [Austen]. Janine led the team that reconstructed Boydell’s gallery as a website. Barbara Bogaev talks to Janine about the 18th-century Shakespeare craze, how Boydell capitalised on it, and the detective work required to recreate his gallery.
Series: Shakespeare Unlimited
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Audio
Duration: 30 mins