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In the popular imagination English landscape painting from the 18th century onwards typifies English art, inspired largely from the love of the pastoral and mirroring as it does the development of larger country houses set in a pastoral rural landscape. Two English Romantics are largely responsible for raising the status of landscape painting worldwide: John Constable (1776–1837) and J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), who is credited with elevating landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Other notable 18th and 19th century landscape painters include: George Arnald (1763–1841); John Linnell (1792–1882), a rival to Constable in his time; George Morland (1763–1804), who developed on Francis Barlow's tradition of animal and rustic painting; Samuel Palmer (1805–1881); Paul Sandby (1731–1809), who is recognised as the father of English watercolour painting; and subsequent watercolourists John Robert Cozens (1752–1797), Turner's friend Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), and Thomas Heaphy (1775–1835).
The early 19th century saw the emergence of the Norwich school of painters, the first provincial art movement outside of London. Short-lived owing to sparse patronage and internal dissent, its prominent members were "founding father" John Crome (1768–1821), John Sell Cotman (1782–1842), James Stark (1794–1859), and Joseph Stannard (1797–1830).
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood movement, established in the 1840s, dominated English art in the second half of the 19th century. Its members — William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882), John Everett Millais (1828–1896) and others — concentrated on religious, literary, and genre works executed in a colorful and minutely detailed, almost photographic style. Ford Madox Brown (1821–1893) shared the Pre-Raphaelites' principles.
Leading English art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century; from the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites, who were influenced by his ideas. William Morris (1834–1896), founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement, emphasised the value of traditional craft skills which seemed to be in decline in the mass industrial age. His designs, like the work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters with whom he was associated, referred frequently to medieval motifs. English narrative painter William Powell Frith (1819–1909) has been described as the "greatest British painter of the social scene since Hogarth", and painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts (1817–1904) became famous for his symbolist work.
The gallant spirit of 19th century English military art helped shape Victorian England's self-image. Notable English military artists include: John Edward Chapman 'Chester' Mathews (1843–1927); Lady Butler (1846–1933); Frank Dadd (1851–1929); Edward Matthew Hale (1852–1924); Charles Edwin Fripp (1854–1906); Richard Caton Woodville, Jr. (1856–1927); Harry Payne (1858–1927); George Delville Rowlandson (1861–1930); and Edgar Alfred Holloway (1870–1941). Thomas Davidson (1842–1919), who specialised in historical naval scenes, incorporated remarkable reproductions of Nelson-related works by Arnald, Westall and Abbott in England's Pride and Glory (1894).
To the end of the 19th century, the art of Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898) contributed to the development of Art Nouveau, and suggested, among other things, an interest in the visual art of Japan.
18th and 19th centuries: gallery
20th century
Impressionism found a focus in the New English Art Club, founded in 1886. Notable members included Walter Sickert (1860–1942) and Philip Wilson Steer (1860–1942), two English painters with coterminous lives who became influential in the 20th century. Sickert went on to the post-impressionist Camden Town Group, active 1911–1913, and was prominent in the transition to Modernism. Steer's sea and landscape paintings made him a leading Impressionist, but later work displays a more traditional English style, influenced by both Constable and Turner.
Paul Nash (1889–1946) played a key role in the development of Modernism in English art. He was among the most important landscape artists of the first half of the twentieth century, and the artworks he produced during World War I are among the most iconic images of the conflict. Nash attended the Slade School of Art, where the remarkable generation of artists who studied under the influential Henry Tonks (1862–1937) included, too, Harold Gilman (1876–1919), Spencer Gore (1878–1914), David Bomberg (1890–1957), Stanley Spencer (1891–1959), Mark Gertler (1891–1939), and Roger Hilton (1911–1975).
Modernism's most controversial English talent was writer and painter Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957). He co-founded the Vorticist movement in art, and after becoming better known for his writing than his painting in the 1920s and early 1930s he returned to more concentrated work on visual art, with paintings from the 1930s and 1940s constituting some of his best-known work. Walter Sickert called Wyndham Lewis: "the greatest portraitist of this or any other time". Modernist sculpture was exemplified by English artists Henry Moore (1898–1986), well known for his carved marble and larger-scale abstract cast bronze sculptures, and Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975), who was a leading figure in the colony of artists who resided in St Ives, Cornwall during World War II.
Lancastrian L. S. Lowry (1887–1976) became famous for his scenes of life in the industrial districts of North West England in the mid-20th century. He developed a distinctive style of painting and is best known for his urban landscapes peopled with human figures often referred to as "matchstick men".
Notable English artists of the mid-20th century and after include: Graham Sutherland (1903–1980); Carel Weight (1908–1997); Ruskin Spear (1911–1990); pop art pioneers Richard Hamilton (1922–2011), Peter Blake (b. 1932), and David Hockney (b. 1937); and op art exemplar Bridget Riley (b. 1931).
Following the development of Postmodernism, English art became in some respect synonymous toward the end of the 20th century with the Turner Prize; the prize, established in 1984 and named with ostensibly credible intentions after J. M. W. Turner, earned for latterday English art a reputation arguably to its detriment. Prize exhibits have included a shark in formaldehyde and a dishevelled bed.
While the Turner Prize establishment satisfied itself with weak conceptual homages to authentic iconoclasts like Duchamp and Manzoni, it spurned original talents such as Beryl Cook (1926–2008). The award ceremony has since 2000 attracted annual demonstrations by the "Stuckists", a group calling for a return to figurative art and aesthetic authenticity. Observing wryly that "the only artist who wouldn't be in danger of winning the Turner Prize is Turner", the Stuckists staged in 2000 a "Real Turner Prize 2000" exhibition, promising (by contrast) "no rubbish".
20th century: gallery
21st century
The sculptor Antony Gormley (b. 1950) expressed doubts a decade after winning the Turner Prize about his "usefulness to the human race", and work including Another Place (2005) and Event Horizon (2012) has achieved both acclaim and popularity. The pseudo-subversive urban art of Banksy, has been much discussed in the media.
A highly visible and much praised work of public art, seen for a brief period in 2014 was Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, a collaboration between artist Paul Cummins (b. 1977) and theatre designer Tom Piper. The installation at the Tower of London between July and November 2014 commemorated the centenary of the outbreak of World War I; it consisted of 888,246 ceramic red poppies, each intended to represent one British or Colonial serviceman killed in the War.
Leading contemporary printmakers include Norman Ackroyd and Richard Spare.
English art on display
British Museum
Delaware Art Museum
National Gallery
National Portrait Gallery
Tate Britain
Victoria and Albert Museum
Walker Art Gallery
Yale Center for British Art
See also
Further reading
David Bindman (ed.), The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of British Art (London, 1985)
Joseph Burke, English Art, 1714–1800 (Oxford, 1976)
William Gaunt, A Concise History of English Painting (London, 1978)
William Gaunt, The Great Century of British Painting: Hogarth to Turner (London, 1971)
Nikolaus Pevsner, The Englishness of English Art (London, 1956)
William Vaughan, British Painting: The Golden Age from Hogarth to Turner (London, 1999)
Ellis Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, 1530-1790, 4th Edn, 1978, Penguin Books (now Yale History of Art series)
== References ==
Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century, gradually becoming distinct from the painting of the rest of the Low Countries, especially the modern Netherlands. In the early period, up to about 1520, the painting of the whole area is (especially in the Anglophone world) typically considered as a whole, as Early Netherlandish painting. This was dominated by the Flemish south, but painters from the north were also important. Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, of which Antwerp became the centre, covers the period up to about 1580 or later, by the end of which the north and south Netherlands had become politically separated. Flemish Baroque painting was especially important in the first half of the 17th century, dominated by Rubens.
In theory the term does not refer to modern Flanders but to the County of Flanders and neighbouring areas of the Low Countries such as the Tournaisis and Duchy of Brabant. However this distinction, well understood in modern Belgium, has always been disregarded by most foreign observers and writers. Flanders delivered the leading painters in Northern Europe and attracted many promising young painters from other countries. These painters were invited to work at foreign courts and had a Europe-wide influence. Since the end of the Napoleonic era, Flemish painters have again been contributing to a reputation that had been set by the Old Masters.
The Franco-Flemish School of musical composition flourished beginning at about the same time.
Late Gothic
The so-called Flemish Primitives were the first to popularize the use of oil paint. Their art has its origins in the miniature painting of the late Gothic period. Chief among them were Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes, Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden. The court of the Duchy of Burgundy was an important source of patronage.
Renaissance
From the early 16th century, the Italian Renaissance started to influence the Flemish painters. The result was very different from the typical Italian Renaissance painting. The leading artist was Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who avoided direct Italian influence, unlike the Northern Mannerists.
Baroque
After the Siege of Antwerp (1584–1585), the Southern Provinces of the Netherlands ("Flanders") remained under Spanish rule and were separated from the independent Dutch Republic. Although many artists fled the religious wars and moved from the Southern Netherlands to the Dutch Republic (see Dutch Golden Age painting), Flemish Baroque painting flourished, especially in the Antwerp school, during the seventeenth century under Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens.
Decline
Following the deaths of major artists like Rubens in 1640 and the end of the Eighty Years War in 1648, the cultural significance of Flanders declined.
Revival
A revival of painting in this region came in the advent of the Belgian Revolution of 1830 and work around that time is often considered Flemish.
The painters, who flourished in the aftermath of this patriotic period, are usually referred to as Belgian rather than Flemish. That kingdom comprising Flanders, often influences also more recent artists's categorization (see List of Belgian painters).
See also
Burgundian Netherlands
Dutch Golden Age
Early Renaissance painting
Flemish Expressionism
Guild of Romanists
List of Flemish painters
Northern Renaissance
Spanish Netherlands
References
Further reading
Dutch and Flemish paintings from the Hermitage. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1988. ISBN 978-0-87099-509-5.
Van Beselaere, Walther (introduction: Teirlinck, Herman) (1961). Moderne Vlaamse schilderkunst van 1850 tot 1950 van Leys tot Permeke (in Dutch). Brussels: De Arcade.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Liedtke, Walter A. (1984). Flemish paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0870993569.
External links
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Painting in Layers
Still Life Painters
Flemish painting (Louvre)
Flemish Art Collection
French art consists of the visual and plastic arts (including French architecture, woodwork, textiles, and ceramics) originating from the geographical area of France. Modern France was the main centre for the European art of the Upper Paleolithic, then left many megalithic monuments, and in the Iron Age many of the most impressive finds of early Celtic art. The Gallo-Roman period left a distinctive provincial style of sculpture, and the region around the modern Franco-German border led the empire in the mass production of finely decorated Ancient Roman pottery, which was exported to Italy and elsewhere on a large scale. With Merovingian art the story of French styles as a distinct and influential element in the wider development of the art of Christian Europe begins.
Romanesque and Gothic architecture flourished in medieval France with Gothic architecture originating from the Île-de-France and Picardy regions of northern France. During the Renaissance led to Italy becoming the main source of stylistic developments until France matched Italy's influence during the Rococo and Neoclassicism periods During the 19th century and up to mid-20 century France and especially Paris was considered the center of the art world with art styles such as Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism originating there as well as movements and congregations of foreign artists such as the École de Paris.
Historic overview
Prehistory
Currently, the earliest known European art is from the Upper Palaeolithic period of between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago and France has a large selection of extant pre-historic art from the Châtelperronian, Aurignacian, Solutrean, Gravettian, and Magdalenian cultures. This art includes cave paintings, such as the famous paintings at Pech Merle in the Lot in Languedoc which date back to 16,000 BC, Lascaux, located near the village of Montignac, in the Dordogne, dating back to between 13,000 and 15,000 BC, or perhaps, as far back as 25,000 BC, the Cosquer Cave, the Chauvet Cave dating back to 29,000 BC, and the Trois-Frères cave; and portable art, such as animal carvings and great goddess statuettes called Venus figurines, such as the "Venus of Brassempouy" of 21,000 BC, discovered in the Landes, now in the museum at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye or the Venus of Lespugue at the Musée de l'Homme. Ornamental beads, bone pins, carvings, as well as flint and stone arrowheads also are among the prehistoric objects from the area of France.
Speculations exist that only Homo sapiens are capable of artistic expression, however, a recent find, the Mask of la Roche-Cotard—a Mousterian or Neanderthal artifact, found in 2002 in a cave near the banks of the Loire River, dating back to about 33,000 B.C.—now suggests that Neanderthal humans may have developed a sophisticated and complex artistic tradition.
In the Neolithic period (see Neolithic Europe), megalithic (large stone) monuments, such as the dolmens and menhirs at Carnac, Saint-Sulpice-de-Faleyrens and elsewhere in France begin to appear; this appearance is thought to start in the fifth millennium BC, although some authors speculate about Mesolithic roots. In France there are some 5,000 megalithics monuments, mainly in Brittany, where there is the largest concentration of these monuments. In this area there is a wide variety of these monuments that have been well preserved, such as menhirs, dolmen, cromlechs and cairns. The Cairn of Gavrinis in southern Brittany is an outstanding example of megalithic art : its 14 meters inner corridor is nearly completely adorned with ornamental carvings. The great broken menhir of Er-Grah, now in four pieces was more than 20 meters high originally, making it the largest menhir ever erected. France has also numerous painted stones, polished stone axes, and inscribed menhirs from this period. The Grand-Pressigny area was known for its precious silex blades and they were extensively exported during the Neolithic.
In France from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, one finds a variety of archaeological cultures, including the Rössen culture of c. 4500–4000 BC, Beaker culture of c. 2800–1900 BC, Tumulus culture of c. 1600–1200 BC, Urnfield culture of c. 1300–800 BC, and, in a transition to the Iron Age, Hallstatt culture of c. 1200–500 BC.
For more on Prehistoric sites in Western France, see Prehistory of Brittany.