Giovanna Perini Folesani
University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy
In the 18th century, despite her political and religious divisions, Europe was much more united by culture than it is now, though after the creation of the economically-based European Union. If classical culture was a unifying factor at the time, the way Classicism was interpreted varied dramatically, according to periods, places and individuals. Even so, it created a vital network of shared values and common bonds running throughout the Continent. An unobvious case in point is a historical painting by the English artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Infant Hercules, commissioned by Empress Catherine II of Russia in 1785 (The Hermitage, St. Petersburg). Although there is nothing classical in its remarkably Rembrandtesque style, its iconography and invention are as much imbued with classical models as its subject matter and its allegorical motivations. British authors (e.g. Penny, 1986; Postle 1995; Mannings, 2000) have discussed its invention and reception mostly in insular terms. Thus they have failed to see the antique visual models at work in this as well as in other late pictures of mythological or classical subjects by Reynolds, nor have they grasped the real reasons behind his unobvious selection of this very subject for the occasion. In this paper I would like to address these issues and show that while Reynolds’s art cannot be described as Neoclassical (despite attempts to do so), his eclecticism would make him palatable and immediately intelligible also outside UK, all over Europe and even in the US in fact. His art was a creative synthesis of previous European art of different places and times, from the antique through to his own days. Without ever being “Neoclassical”, by studying the classics Reynolds turned out to be a modern Classic in his own right, crossing borders and cultures, while establishing a national British style.