Citizens and Kings: Studies in World Art, Book 21 (Unabridged‪)‬

"Citizens and Kings", the new blockbuster show at the Royal Academy in London, contains an almost overwhelming number of celebrated paintings and sculptures, even if one or two of them, such as Jacques-Louis David’s Marat Assassiné, turn out to be studio versions rather than the real thing.

The show aims to trace the shift in attitudes towards the human personality that was set in motion by the American and French Revolutions and the wars associated with these great political and social upheavals. It is, quite literally, a history lesson conducted with the help of famous work of art, and to appreciate it fully, you have to carry the historical outline in your head - not merely the story of how governments rose and fell, but the pattern of cultural transformation as well.