Artists and Migration 1400-1850

Book excerpt: This volume offers a thematic exploration of the migrant artist’s experience in Europe and its colonies from the early modern period through to the Industrial Revolution. The influence of the transient artist, both on their adoptive country as well as their own oeuvre and native culture, is considered through a collection of essays arranged according to geographic location. The contributions here examine the impetuses behind artistic migrations and the status of the foreign artist at home and abroad through the patterns of patronage, contemporary responses to their work and the preservation of their artistic legacy in domestic and foreign settings. Objects and sites from across the visual arts are considered as evidence of the migrant artist’s experience; talismans of cultural exchange that yielded hybrid artistic styles and disseminated foreign tastes and workshop practices across the globe.