Hind site is always 20/20. Looking back on history, especially the history of painting, one can decipher a great deal about the time it was painted in and the changes in those times. One can understand the value systems, the ethics, government, morality, economics and personal lives of the times r...

Much painting had been done in England by a handful of native artists well into the eighteenth century, although it was foreign artists that had dominated the market for paintings. British artists could not form an original style and one they could call their own, thus they were seldom admired. In...