Michaelina Wautier (Royal Academy of Arts)
The Royal Academy now offers the extraordinary work of Michaelina Wautier (1614 -1689), a recently ‘recovered’ late seventeenth-century Netherlandish artist of exceptional talent, whose work has
Criticks – BSECS online reviews
The eighteenth century was the first great age of criticism. In this spirit, the Criticks website provides entertaining, informative and provocative reviews of events and media that are of interest to scholars of the eighteenth century. These complement the reviews of books that are published in the journal of the Society, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
Plays, concerts, operas, exhibitions, films, trade fiction, broadcasts and online resources are here considered in depth by experts in the field. If there is an event that you would like to see reviewed in these pages, or if you would like to review for us, please contact one of the editors below:
Criticks Editor
Criticks Subject Editors
Fiction: Helen Dallas
Fine and Decorative Art: Miriam Al Jamil
Media: Gráinne O’Hare
Music: Vacant
Theatre: Isabel Azar
Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture
This exhibition (curated by Sir Charles Saumarez Smith CBE and architect Roz Barr) is part of the Vanbrugh300 celebrations and accompanies a new biography of Vanbrugh, by Saumarez Smith: the first in
Frankenstein (2025)
Del Toro translates the nineteenth-century tragedy into our twenty-first-century psychological vernacular.
The Testament of Ann Lee
Ann Lee is played by Amanda Seyfried, in an intense and moving performance.
Wright of Derby: From the Shadows (National Gallery)
The silence of light and shadow dulls the chatter of Wright’s subjects, immobilising squabbling children and gesticulating lecturers into quiet, almost spectral forms.
Marie Antoinette Style (V&A)
Marie-Antoinette Style reveals that despite her tragic end, Marie-Antoinette remains as fashionable today as she was in eighteenth-century France.
Sarah Lethieullier’s Dolls’ House at the Huguenot Museum
Viewing Sarah Lethieullier’s dolls’ house at close quarters is an excellent experience, and one made all the better for its presentation in the Huguenot Museum.
Unearthed: The Power of Gardening (British Library)
Although difficult issues of ignorance, exploitation and commercial greed are addressed, the overall sense of this exhibition is one of hope, of the power of gardening and nurturing the land to heal
A Palimpsest of Country House Culture – Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter (Harewood House)
These three players—Austen, Turner, Harewood—weave themselves in each gallery’s themes, bringing to our attention myriad resonances and surprises.
Miss Austen (BBC)
To reduce Austen’s writing to a set of aesthetics and tropes, punctuated by the clanging thud of exposition, is surely its own kind of disservice.