Romantic Illustration Network

The Romantic Illustration Network (RIN) restores to view the importance of book illustration and visual  culture in the Romantic period, but also across the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. RIN brings together scholars working on poetry, prose, the printed book, visual culture, and painting from roughly 1750 – 1850 to share research and to develop new models for understanding the relationship between word and image in the period, between large and small scale work, and between painting, print and illustration.

RIN will foreground artists who have been unduly ignored, and return attention to well-known artists in unfamiliar roles. We aim to recapture lost cultures of looking and of reading, restoring the link between word and image not only in book illustration but in the wider literary and visual culture.

Our original programme of events took as starting points in turn the artist, the author, the gallery and the economics of print. We have produce an edited collection of essays and begun to expand the network as the basis for a longer research project. We have launched new partnerships, including with House of Illustration and the University of the Third Age. We are in conversation Tate Britain concerning research that will enhance the Tate’s collection of literary prints and paintings.

Follow us on Twitter at @RomanticIllust1 https://twitter.com/RomanticIllust1