"This book, together with the exhibition that it accompanied, examines the history of the Royal Academy exhibitions that took place annually in Somerset House between 1780 and 1836. These years were in many ways the crucial period for British art, a period spanning the last phase of Gainsborough's career, the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds and the flowering of the genius of Turner and Constable. At every annual exhibition, painters struggled to secure the best places for their works in the Great Room, as near as possible to the famous 'Line', the wooden moulding that still runs around the walls some eight feet from the floor." -- Taken from the Foreword.