The eighteenth century saw a massive increase of visual material¿from illustrated books, to museums, to giant panoramic landscape paintings. In the classical tradition, painting is the sister to poetry. According to this formulation, poetry is a speaking picture, while painting is a silent poem. This class examines pictures and words in the eighteenth century, a period where the sister arts in Britain were especially closely connected. In addition to reviewing some of the spectacular visuals of the period, we will look at writing about art, poems about paintings, and theories of seeing and reading.