YCBA exhibit observes the British Empire through an artist's eye

Enormous narrative paintings peopled with dozens of eclectic characters and unconventional solitary portraits that capture people in intimate moments comprise the 65 oil paintings and a selection of drawings and prints in the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) exhibition: "Johan Zoffany RA: Society Observed."

Considered "one of the most fascinating and visually captivating artists of the 18th century," Zoffany's paintings offer a unique and, in many ways, objective view of British society and institutions- perhaps because the German-born artist always remained somewhat of an outsider in England.

Walking around this exhibit, gazing at these highly detailed works, one is pulled into the lively world Zoffany creates in which the nuanced figures don't stiffly stand or sit in traditional poses, but come to life, transporting the viewer back to an earlier time and place.

Organized jointly with the Royal Academy of Arts, London, this is the first exhibition in the U.S. devoted entirely to Zoffany's body of work and the first in Britain since 1976. The show is divided into eight sections representing Zoffany's 40-plus-year career.

Included are his early Baroque paintings, portraits featuring a wide range of subjects, from London stage actors to royal commissions of aristocratic families to everyday family life; works inspired by and produced during his five years in Italy and another six years in India; and his final years (1790s) during which his paintings portrayed and made a personal statement about the French Revolution.

One of the most remarkable paintings in the exhibition, according to YCBA organizing curator Gillian Forrester, is "The Auriol and Dashwood Families" (1783-7), depicting the consolidation of a dynasty family in Calcutta and the complex structure of Anglo-Indian domestic life.

"It speaks very much to the extravagant lifestyles of the English, the gluttony and obsession with large staffs of servants," Forrester says. "Zoffany was actually a very subversive artist. I see satirical elements (in the painting)-pudgy-looking English people, dispirited women not connecting with their husbands. The most beautifully delineated figures are the servants whose individualized, interesting expressions undercut the seriousness of the commission."

"Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match" (1784-86) is an ambitious work commissioned by Warren Hastings (the first governor general of India) that includes more than 90 figures.

"Blood sports were widely practiced in India and Europe," Forrester notes. "The heart of the painting is ambiguous-a complex exchange. Zoffany is in the painting, looking out in a dispassionate way. It's very complex, disturbing, perplexing, and enigmatic."

On a lighter note, "The Three Graces" (1749-50)," Zoffany's earliest known work, is a painting of the mythological daughters of Zeus and the Titan goddess Euroynome. Although still only in his teens, in this interpretation of the classical subject, one can already see Zoffany's knowledge of anatomy, mastery of figure painting, handling of detail, and emerging style.

Paintings from Zoffany's London stage period, such as "David Garrick as Sir John Brute in 'The Provok'd Wife'" (1763) capture the energy and excitement and, in this case, sense of humor of live theater.

"Charles Townley's Library in Park Street, Westminster" (1781-83), painted upon Zoffany's return to London after his sojourn to Italy, is known as one of the artist's greatest works. In an engaging confluence of past and present, Townley, the wealthy collector and antiquarian is sitting in his library with his friends, surrounded by his collection of Greek and Roman statues and busts (more than 40 are represented)-his dog asleep on the rug.