{"product_id":"painting-with-fire-matthew-c-hunter-9780226390253","title":"Painting with Fire: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Photography, and the Temporally Evolving Chemical Object","description":"\u003ci\u003ePainting with Fire\u003c\/i\u003e shows how experiments with chemicals known to change visibly over the course of time transformed British pictorial arts of the long eighteenth century--and how they can alter our conceptions of photography today. As early as the 1670s, experimental philosophers at the Royal Society of London had studied the visual effects of dynamic combustibles. By the 1770s, chemical volatility became central to the ambitious paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds, premier portraitist and first president of Britain's Royal Academy of Arts. Valued by some critics for changing in time (and thus, for prompting intellectual reflection on the nature of time), Reynolds's unstable chemistry also prompted new techniques of chemical replication among Matthew Boulton, James Watt, and other leading industrialists. In turn, those replicas of chemically decaying academic paintings were rediscovered in the mid-nineteenth century and claimed as origin points in the history of photography. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Tracing the long arc of chemically produced and reproduced art from the 1670s through the 1860s, the book reconsiders early photography by situating it in relationship to Reynolds's replicated paintings and the literal engines of British industry. By following the chemicals, \u003ci\u003ePainting with Fire\u003c\/i\u003e remaps familiar stories about academic painting and pictorial experiment amid the industrialization of chemical knowledge. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Matthew C. Hunter\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 022639025X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226390253\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/01\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 2.00lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 10.10h x 7.30w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/01\/2021","brand":"Matthew C. Hunter","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48447600984319,"sku":"9780226390253","price":54.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_74e25cc5-f7a3-4511-a649-bf237eefacbc.jpg?v=1777233776","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/painting-with-fire-matthew-c-hunter-9780226390253","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}