![]() ![]() ![]() The detailed survey starts with literary responses from contemporaries, drawing on plays (such as James Shirley’s The Lady of Pleasure of 1637) and poetry (including Ben Jonson’s Eupheme) that place the experience of sitting for a painter like Van Dyck as an intimate, cosmopolitan luxury. Only in a short ‘Afterword’ are we given a taste of John Singer Sargent’s sparkling brilliance, his homages to Van Dyck and Roger Fry’s curt damnation of both. ![]() There are limits to the study that follows, as it focuses on London and does not explore the wider dissemination of Van Dyckian style and modes of work, and concludes in the 18th century. The novelty of this contrasts with much scholarship around the artist that has been connoisseurial and documentary. Eaker also brings to his narrative a subtle queer reading of Van Dyck and his reception – which, he emphasises, does not involve speculation about the irrecoverable sexual practices of historical figures. This is bound up with a number of complex and over- lapping models of interpretation, including the disegno versus colore debate (the latter being categorised as feminine) and the contrast critics have drawn between the careers of Rubens and Van Dyck, which have been characterised, respectively, in male and female terms. John Astley died on 14 November 1787 aged 63, at Dukinfield Lodge, and is interred at the Old Chapel in Dukinfield.An enduring aspect of this reception history is emphasised: the way in which the perception of the artist’s work has been gendered and often considered ‘feminine’. Another source states that Astley, although now rich, continued to accept commissions and charged a steep "20 guineas, the usual price". Some sources state that Astley gave up painting after his 1759 second marriage, to the wealthy widow, but a contemporary account indicates that he continued to work after that union: "Beau Astley has contributed half-a-dozen phizes, which, he tells me, he painted for fun the better luck, so much for being a squire". He later went to study in Rome and Florence in 1747 (one of his teachers was Pompeo Batoni), before establishing his career during several years in Dublin, Ireland, and afterwards settling in England. In London, in the 1740s, Astley studied with Joshua Reynolds under the artist Thomas Hudson. He had a haram and a bath at the top of his house, replete with every enticement and blandishment to awaken desire and thus lived, jocund and thoughtless, until his nerves were unstrung by age when his spirits decayed with his animal powers, and he sighed and drooped into eternity!" He would never stir abroad without his bag and his sword and, when the beauties of Ierne sat to him for their portraits, he would affect to neglect the necessary implements of his art, and use his naked sword as a moll-stick. He was as ostentatious as the peacock and as amorous as the Persian Sophihe. Several jaundiced contemporary accounts of Astley's character exist, notably a lengthy observation by John Williams, (aka Anthony Pasquin), who wrote: "He thought that every advantage in civil society was compounded in women and wine: and, acting up to this principal of bliss, he gave his body to Euphrosyne, and his intellects to madness. A biographer of Sir Joshua Reynolds described Astley as "a gasconading spendthrift and a beau of the flashiest order." Some period sources also call him Jack Astley. Among his siblings was a brother Richard, also a physician, whose estate he inherited.ĭue to his good looks, he was known as Beau Astley. John Astley was an English portrait painter and amateur architect, known for his "patronage among a vast circle of fashion" as well as a fortune acquired through marriage.īorn in Wem, Shropshire, England, John Astley was a son of an apothecary, Richard Astley (1671–1754), and his wife, Margaret (1685–1735). ![]()
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