School for Modern Romans
Etcher Thomas Rowlandson British
After James Brydges Willyams British
Publisher Thomas Rowlandson British
Not on view
In this eighth print of a group of eight, a young man who is deeply has shot himself. We see him discovered by a hairdressers and tailor, accompanied by men carrying bills and notes of debt. Suicide was then illegal in Britain but, as the title indicates, associated with ancient Romans who pursued it as a virtuous option when life became unbearable. The young man here is, of course, not virtuous but has chosen suicide to escape disgrace and debtor's prison. Rowlandson etched this set after drawings by Willyams, a university-educated lieutenant-colonel from Cornwall who also supplied supporting satirical text under the pseudonym Joel McCringer. Rowlandson's characteristic elegance does not disguise the dark human impulses being satirized. Modern education, it is suggested, does little to teach self-control, wisdom or empathy.
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