Civilising Caliban: the misuse of art 1875-1975
My doctoral thesis, first published by Routledge and Kegan Paul in 1987 and now reprinted as a Faber Find with a new introduction, started as an investigation into the so-called ‘wave of social realist art’ that supposedly hit the Royal Academy exhibitions from the 1870s. This developed into the discovery of the settlement movement’s use of paintings to refine the urban poor.
‘At the heart of Ms Borzello’s analysis is the character and work of that celebrated late-Victorian “improver” –Canon Samuel Barnett. …..little attention has been paid to the crucial and controversial role Barnett gave art to play in the improvement of the working classes. For Barnett art possessed a remarkable and virtually irresistible “refining” and “civilising” power, a capacity “to improve not just the lives of the poor but the poor themselves”. Albion, spring 1990