Hayley2020 – Video Presentations

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A selection of the video presentations from Hayley2020

Alex Kidson discusses the ups and downs of William Hayley’s friendship with George Romney

1. An introduction to Hayley & Romney’s friendship

Hayley’s classical education was very useful to Romney, who appreciated his friend’s ability to suggest interesting subject matter from obscure literature. Hayley also welcomed Romney to his house in Eartham, West Sussex, where the workaholic painter could relax, recharge his batteries, draw and paint. The pair probably met early in 1776, but Hayley didn’t sit to Romney for his first portrait until 1777.

2. Romney’s Cupid & Psyche cartoons

The original plan was for Romney and Hayley to produce a joint work based on Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche. Hayley abandoned the project in favour of his An Essay on Painting: In Two Epistles to Mr. Romney, which he thought would be more beneficial to his friend. Romney, however, had already made eight cartoons. Seven of these survive, althought in poor condition.

3. Romney’s pictures illustrating Hayley’s The Triumphs of Temper and A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Essay on Old Maids

Romney made several paintings depicting Serena, the heroine of William Hayley’s The Triumphs of Temper and illustrations for his controversial Essay on Old Maids. A few were engraved for each work, but none bear Romney’s name as the artist. Alex Kidson explains why.

4. Romney’s Tempest picture

When Romney started this picture, he was going to include only three figures: Prospero (for whom Hayley was going to be the model); Miranda (Emma Hart) and Caliban (Romney himself). But Hayley got involved (or interfered). Over the years, the two men’s ideas about art, and about how Romney should approach his work diverged…

5. Flaxman modelling the bust of Hayley and The Four Friends

Alex Kidson discusses the two friendship pictures Romney painted that feature William Hayley. One might not be quite as friendly as the other.

Extra video: Alex Kidson on Romney’s portrait of Charlotte Bettesworth

In this short video (filmed in 2016), Alex Kidson discusses the quietly risqué portrait of Miss Bettesworth that hangs in Sudley House, Liverpool.

Hayley in his contexts

Alexandra Harris on “Dear Retreats” – Hayley’s places

The author and academic explores how Hayley viewed the landscape around Chichester and his home and grounds at Eartham, how that matched and diverged from other contemporary ideas about and approaches to landscape and, his desire for local cultural inheritance.

Lisa Gee on Hope, disability, parental love and grief

Lisa (me – unlike William Hayley, I find writing about myself in the third person a tad weird!) tells us about Hayley’s hopes for the poet William Cowper’s recovery, how he sourced a wheelchair for his increasingly disabled son, Tom, his Essay on Sculpture written for/to the sculptor John Flaxman, to whom Tom was apprenticed and about Mary Cockerell: Tom’s mother.

David Bindman on William Hayley and John Flaxman

1. Introducing John Flaxman

David Bindman describes Flaxman’s background and personality and tells us how Flaxman and Hayley met.

2. Flaxman, Hayley and the monuments to Lord Mansfield and William Collins

Hayley was very free with the advice he doled out to his artist friends. But he didn’t always get everything right. David Bindman explores how, in one instance, Flaxman employed all his diplomacy in challenging his friend, and how, in another, he praised his taste and ideas.

3. The Lushington and Steevens monuments

In this video, David Bindman explores two monuments on which Flaxman and Hayley collaborated, one of which featured a pair of remarkably handsome legs…