Isaac Fuller's "Escape of Charles II": a restoration tragicomedy
-
David Solkin [1]
-
[1] Courtauld Institute
-
- Localización: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, ISSN 0075-4390, Nº 62, 1999, págs. 199-240
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
-
Resumen
The writer discusses Isaac Fuller's series of five paintings The Escape of Charles II after the Battle of Worcester, the most ambitious cycle of narrative paintings to come out of 17th-century England. An examination of this tragicomic work shows us how the Restoration sought to come to terms with the traumas of its recent past, and it informs us on the nature of the new symbolic regime that was being built on the ruins of the old system. Fuller's series shows the king brought down to the same level as his subjects, and perhaps more significantly, he is shown as indistinguishable from them in physical appearance. Although we are never left in any doubt as to the king's importance, the paintings do not make us any less certain of his mortal and human nature.
