John Wesley’s national evangelistic career between 1740 and his death coincided closely with the development of the ‘English school’ of art, especially portraiture, as well as the growth of popular print, on which he capitalised for his religious publications. As an admired or vilified public persona, he was (especially in old age) a figure of curiosity whose image was popularly known and circulated.
In his lifetime Wesley sat for around a dozen painted portraits, ranging from those by significant artists such as Nathaniel Hone, John Russell and George Romney, to local, sometimes anonymous face painters. Analysing the ways in which Wesley’s ‘image’ developed John Wesley, Image and Identity offers a new understanding of the propaganda and ‘image control’ of Methodism.
