In Tate Britain
Prints and Drawings Room
View by appointment- Artist
- James Barry 1741–1806
- Medium
- Etching, line engraving and aquatint on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 454 x 372 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1992
- Reference
- T06575
Display caption
Barry was one of several artists who took subjects from history in order to express a view about their own times. The meaning of such pictures becomes clear when the viewer knows the original story and the artist's intentions. Because of the smell from a wound in his foot Philoctetes was banished by Ulysses to Lemnos. Barry admired the politician George Savile who supported the American War of Independence. Like Philoctetes he was an 'outsider' among his countrymen. Barry dedicated this print to him. Blake's history paintings and Prophecies are rooted in a personal mythology quite unlike the classical Greek source of Barry's 'Philoctetes'. But Blake's work can still be 'read' like Barry's.
Gallery label, September 2004
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