Barry, James

Barry, James (1741–1806), the finest of all Irish painters in the ‘grand manner’, left his native Cork, for Dublin, in his early twenties. There he met Edmund Burke, who arranged for him to go to London to further his career. He arrived there in 1764. The following year, financed by Burke, he embarked upon a continental tour, with Rome as the final destination. So impressed was he by the works of antiquity and the old masters that he determined to specialize in history painting in the ‘grand manner’, that is, to paint historical subjects derived from Greek and Roman mythology and history. Thereafter, he never waivered from his commitment to this, the most exalted of the artistic genres. On returning to London in 1771, he met with considerable success and became a member of the Royal Academy. The high point of his career was his mural series of 1777–83 at the Royal Society of Arts—The Progress of Human Culture—possibly the most important cycle of history paintings in the British Isles. However, lack of support for history painting on a grand scale eventually led him into penury and despair, a situation made worse by his unstable and aggressive personality. In 1799 he was expelled from the Royal Academy for verbal attacks on its members and operations, the first and only artist ever to suffer such a fate. He died a lonely recluse, a martyr to his obsession with the promotion of history painting above all else.

Eileen Black