different types of art object. Chapter 2 investigates the complex and shifting allocations of status within
the hierarchies of genre or subject matter of art. Chapter 3 focuses on the evolution of a new public for art
and the expression of its developing tastes, with reference to the art market, exhibitions, practices of
viewing and imperialism. Chapter 4 examines the new critical discourses of taste and art journalism that
helped inform this public. Chapter 5 examines ethical issues relating to the production and reception of
art, including the debates surrounding luxury, consumerism, Orientalism and the practices of “moral
looking.”
Further Reading
Blanning, Timothy C.W. 2000. EighteenthCentury Europe 1688–1815 . Oxford: Oxford University
Press. This book helps to locate the eighteenth century between the “old” world and “modernity.” It
introduces key aspects of eighteenthcentury European history: demographics, politics, economics, the
social order, religion, war and empire.
Rudé, George. 1972. Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Aristocracy and the Bourgeois Challenge.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. An accessible introduction to eighteenthcentury European history.
Waterhouse, Ellis. 1994 (fifth edition; first published 1953). Painting in Britain 1530–1790, with an
Introduction by Michael Kitson. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press.