The Hon Richard Fitzwilliam, Seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion, 1764, by Joseph White. Courtesy The Fitzwilliam

A new exhibition, From Reason to Revolution, Art and Society in 18th Century Britain, is running at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge until January 27 2008. It examines the many contradictions in society in 18th century Britain.

This dynamic period of history is explored through paintings, prints, drawings, rare books, ceramics and sculptures, including works by William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, Joseph Wright and William Blake.

The 18th century was a paradoxical time for British culture. Looking to future possibilities while still enamoured with the classical past; excited by new frontiers of human learning while still a part of the transatlantic slave trade that oppressed millions.

William Blake, Daughters of Albion. Courtesy The Fitzwilliam

The exhibition considers the effect of ‘The Grand Tour’, a journey of cultural pilgrimage taken by many Europeans to the ancient sites of Italy and Greece. Portraits by artists like Reynolds demonstrate the aesthetic ambition of these early tourists, while landscape views and architectural studies show how inspired they were by the classical ruins.

Also shown are the more earthly matters of early foreign travel, as documented in comic caricatures, sketches and souvenirs of the time. Enthusiasm for further exploration can be seen in the observational drawings and paintings produced by artists such as John Webber, who accompanied Captain Cook on his last expedition to the Pacific.

The works of James Gillray and Hogarth, whose acerbic satire exposed the cultural discrepancies of the time, evinced the increasing contrast between Britain’s industrial success and its social problems.

The Air Pump, 1769, by Valentine Green. Courtesy The Fitzwilliam

Elsewhere, new social mobility was expressed through the aspirational portraits painted by affluent young professionals. Advances in science and technology are apparent in Valentine Green’s Experiment With an Air Pump, after Joseph Wright’s earlier painting. Other works reveal a sense of foreboding regarding man’s new relationship with nature.

Coinciding with Black History Month, the exhibition also focuses on the major paradox of the time, the contradiction between ideals of civilisation and the injustices of the transatlantic slave trade.

Opponents of the slave trade employed art as a political tool, while others like Wedgewood and the librettist George Colman often portrayed moral ambiguity concerning race and identity, more concerned with mercantile activity than human rights.

The exhibition also shows the impact the revolutions in France and America had on British artists such as William Blake, whose work reveals the tension between ideals of reason and the passion of revolution. Many of the objects featured in the show are from Richard, Seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam’s original bequest to the University of Cambridge in 1816 to ‘the increase of learning and other great Objects of that Noble Foundation’.