An emerging general awareness of the theoretical issues involved in the study of culture and society, and the new emphasis given to the questions of class, race and gender, has produced an interdisciplinary approach to the study of British art, particularly of the 18th and 19th centuries. These essays are by scholars from various disciplines, many of whom have been at the forefront of this transformation. There are essays on Gainsborough, Joseph Wright of Derby, Turner and Benjamin Robert Haydon; on the teaching of art to women, on 18th-century social theories of painting, and on the representation of industrial landscape, of femininity, and of "exotic" and oriental cultures. This collection should therefore be of interest to scholars and students of the history of art, literature, social history, cultural studies and women's studies.