Type: Article
Turpin, John. ‘French Influence on Eighteenth-Century Art Education in Dublin’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 5 (1990), pp 105-116.
This article discusses drawing schools in Ireland and their development as a direct result of the political, social and economic circumstances of Georgian Ireland, together with the influence of the French Enlightenment. Turpin discusses the forming of the Dublin Society, one of the earliest economic societies in eighteenth-century Europe, and the relationship between Irish economic self-development and drawing schools. Jean Baptiste Descamps, founder of French art schools, influenced the Dublin Society with his ideas of providing free drawing education to craftsmen. Descampss ideas were an integral part of the French Enlightenment with its stress on practical and useful learning with a relevance to economic development. Turpin also examines the history of drawing schools in France and the British Isles, the government funding of Dublin Society schools, school curricula, European artistic influences and the Dublin Societys artistic conservativism, the impact of the Act of Union of 1800 and the funding of Irish schools, and advocates of drawing schools in Ireland, George Berkeley, Samuel Madden, and Charles Smith.