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| John William Cook Portraits of twenty artists for Crabb's Historical Dictionary London, 1825 etching, engraving British Museum |
Five rows of four "artists" each, for a total of twenty historical figures. In the London of 1825 it was seemingly self-evident that these twenty belonged together – not, certainly, because they shared the same aesthetic values, or even the same medium of expression – but perhaps because they all at that particular cultural moment shared equally in a certain aura of glamour and significance. It is instructive to study their names (as spelled in the source) below. Equally interesting to consider omissions.
Row 1: Domenichino
Paul Veronese
M.A. Carravagio
Indigo Jones
Row 2: Guido Reni
Poussin
Vandyke
Claude
Row 3: Gerard Dou
Lewis Caracci
Augustine Caracci
Annibal Caracci
Row 4: Rembrandt
Salvator Rosa
Sir Peter Lely
Sir Christopher Wren
Row 5: Sir Godfrey Kneller
Purcel
Handel
Vertue
Two architects, two composers, sixteen painters.
One 16th-century figure, seventeen from the 17th century, two from the 18th.