Room 34

Whistlejacket, George Stubbs’s life-size horse, occupies its canvas with almost nothing to distract from the animal. Nearby, Hogarth’s Marriage A-la-Mode offers crowded scenes that need to be read in sequence. A single room can move between a concentrated likeness and a story full of social detail. British artists worked for patrons whose tastes and wealth shaped their commissions. Portrait painters drew on European models while institutions such as the Royal Academy gave them new opportunities to train and exhibit. Compare Gainsborough’s treatment of people with Stubbs’s study of the horse. Clothing, pose, scale and the space around a figure each help establish what sort of picture you are looking at.