Painting in Great Britain

Middle Ages (600-1500)

Religious art: wall paintings, painted glass and illuminated (decorated and illustrated) manuscripts. The example of Northumbrian art — The Lindisfarne Gospels, and of Celtic art The Book of Kells, both are of the 8th century. Canterbury and Winchester were two other important centres of illumination. Wall painting was at its best in the 13th century and the best-known centres were at St Albans, Winchester and Westminster. Perhaps the finest surviving work of this period of English painting is The Chichester Roundel. Much work has been lost or destroyed. During the 14th century, a continental Gothic can be seen, as in the Wilton Diptych (National Gallery, London). 16th century

The Reformation ended patronage of art by the Church and cut England off from the Renaissance in painting. The Tudor court was not interested in patronizing any form of painting except portraiture. The best painter working in England during this century was the German Hans Holbein, but he did not found any school. The only English painters of real quality in the 16th century were the painters of miniatures — Nicholas Hilliard and his followers Isaac and Peter Oliver.

17th century

There was royal patronage of foreign painters, particularly Van Dyck, who greatly influenced later English painters. Later in the century, Lely and Kneller were the fashionable portraitists. There were still few leading native English painters; the best were the portraitists Dobson and Riley.

18th century

The new architecture of Wren and others led to mural paint­ing in a great many places. The work of Sir James Thornhill is especially well known. The first really original English artist was William Hogarth. Portrait painting and historical or mytholog­ical subjects were made elegant by Reynolds, the founder of the Royal Academy, and by Gainsborough. They were followed by Romney, Lawrence, Hoppner and Raeburn. In landscape paint­ing, Gainsborough drew his inspiration from the Dutch school, while Richard Wilson studied classical composition. The 18th century also saw the development of caricature in the work of Hogarth, Rowlandson and Gillray. Sporting paintings were pop­ular: among the many artists in this field, George Stubbs has come to be respected as a great master. History painting was encouraged by Reynolds, and practised by West.

19th century

British landscape painting was at its most during the time of the Romantic movement, with the work of Constable and

Turner, the two supreme landscape painters of their time. Others were the Norwich realist Crome, George Morland, and the water-colourists Cotman, Girtin, Bennington and Peter de Wint. The Romantic movement also influenced the mystic poet-artist William Blake, his follower Samuel Palmer and John Martin. After about 1830, English painting became more conventional and sentimental: the work of Frith, Landseer, Lord Leighton, Alma Tadea, Wilkie, Maclise and others is popular illustration of the fact. The Pre-Raphaelites, led by Millais and Holman Hunt, tried to revive a simpler, more sincere style. Later in the century Whistler painted in a manner conveying a feeling of atmosphere: he was influenced by Impressionism, as were Wilson Steer and Sickert.

20th century

The critic Roger Fry introduced the art movement known as Post-Impressionism; a form of futurism was developed around Wyndham Lewis, who is also associated with vorticism (an English variety of cubism). Cubism and surrealism were reflected in the work of David Bomberg, Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland. Ben Nicholson developed a precise and delicate abstract style, and Victor Pasmore moved from realism of atmosphere to the purest form of abstract art. Two distinctively English artists outside the European movement were Stanley Spencer and Augustus John. The academic and sporting traditions were continued by Sir Alfred Munnings. The tormented figures of Francis Bacon are also distinctive. The leaders of English pop art were Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi and Peter Blake. Other artists who have become well known in recent years include the "optical" painter Bridget Riley.

CARICATURE in Great Britain

William Hogarth was the father of both English popular painting and English caricature. In the 18th century his example was followed by Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray and later, George Cruikshank. The Victorian age was too respectable for satire and caricature: the popular comic magazine Punch, founded in 1841, is a rich and amusing record of Victorian England, but the Punch artists, John Leech,

Tenniel, Keene and George du Maurier produced realistic drawings that can hardly be considered as caricature. In the 1890s portrait caricature was revived by Max Beerbohm. Leading modern caricaturists and cartoonists include Sir David Low, Vicky, Giles, Ronald Searle, and Jack. In the 1960s the violent spirit of Gillray was revived by Gerald Scarf.

SCULPTURE in Great Britain

Much medieval sculpture was in the churches, and was destroyed at the Reformation and by the Puritans in the 17th century, but many Celtic and Anglo-Saxon crosses from the 7th to the 11th centuries survived and many Norman churches have rich carvings. One of the best examples of Gothic sculpture in England is the west front of Wells Cathedral. There are 13th-and 15th-century tombs at Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral.

The only work produced in the 16th and early 17th centuries is tomb-sculpture, often of alabaster, and brightly coloured. Later in the 17th century, Grinling Gibbons did elegant decorative work, mostly in wood, in private houses as well as public buildings.

During the 18th century, highly decorated monuments were produced, e. g. those in Westminster Abbey by J. M. Rysbrack and L. F. Roubiliac. In the later 18th century and early 19th century, sculpture became simpler, in the neo-classical style. The portrait busts of J. Nollekens are outstanding. Other leading sculptors of the time were Sir R. Westmacott and J. Flaxman, whose monuments are less effective than his designs for Wedgwood pottery. The most distinguished sculpture of the mid-19th century is that of Alfred Stevens. Later Victorian sculpture tends to vary between being over-realistic or too simple in its neo-classical form.

In the 20th century, Jacob Epstein is best known for his portrait bronzes, which continue the tradition of Rodin. The modern movement in sculpture is represented by Eric Gill, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Other modern British sculptors are Lynn Chadwick, who makes heavy metal structures on thin legs, and Kenneth Armitage, whose works are usually animal forms, also in metal.

The "new sculpture" of the 1960s was totally different from earlier sculpture: Anthony Caro follows the American David Smith in using ready-made steel parts for his constructions; Eduardo Paolozzi also works in steel, making objects that look like machines. Other artists like Philip King work in plastic or fibreglass. All these artists use bright colour in a way that brings sculpture closer to painting.

MUSEUMS AND ART COLLECTIONS

Britain's most frequently visited museum, the British Museum in London, is also its largest. It was founded in 1753 and is especially famous for its collection of antiquities and as the home, until the early 1990s, of the British Library.

The oldest museum in Britain is the Ashmolean in Oxford, founded in 1683. It has collections of ancient history, fine art and archaeology. Many of the most important specialist museums, however, are in London. They include the museums built in South Kensington after the Great Exhibition of 1851: the Victoria and Albert Museum, which specializes in applied art, the Science Museum, especially popular with children and the Natural History Museum. Also in London are the Museum of London, illustrating the capital's history, the Imperial War Museum and the London Transport Museum. One of the most recently founded museums is the Museum of the Moving Image, which specializes in the history of film and television.

Important art collections in London are those of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, next door to each other in Trafalgar Square, and the Tate Gallery, with its collections of British art and international modern art.

Outside London, well-known museums and collections include the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the City Museum and Art Gallery in Birmingham, the City Art Gallery in Leeds, and the Yorvic Centre in York, a reconstruction of the city's Viking settlement. Liverpool has the Tate Gallery of the North as an extension of the Tate Gallery in London, one of the finest in the country. Museums of specialist interest outside London include the National Railway Museum in York and the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford.

Scottish collections include those of the National Gallery of Scotland, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, which are all in Edinburgh .Glas­gow has the important Burrell Collection, donated to the city in 1944 by the ship-owner and collector Sir William Burrell.

Many famous museums began as private collections. The Ashmolean houses the collection donated to Oxford University by Elias Ashmole. The Tate opened in 1897 with the financial support of Sir Henry Tate. The Fitzwilliam was built to house the collection bequeathed to Cambridge University in 1816 by Viscount Fitzwilliam.

Smaller museums in Britain include the town museums owned by many local councils, often showing collections of local history. The homes of famous people, especially writers, are often preserved as museums. One of the most frequently visited is Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. The homes of Jane Austen, Dickens, Wordsworth, Keats and Samuel Johnson are also preserved.

Many of the newer museums are "living" museums that aim to recreate the lives of ordinary people or show how things were made in the past. An example of the latter is the Gladstone Pottery Museum near Stoke-on-Trent where potters can be seen at work in a Victorian Pottery.

Topics for discussion:

1. The English are an artistic nation.

2. State financial grant to the arts.

3. Early English painting.

4. William Hogarth, the 1^st great English painter.

5. Sir Joshua Reynolds.

6. Thomas Gainsborough.

7. The Norwich School.

8. John Constable.

9. Joseph Turner.

10. The Pre-Raphaelites.

11. Modern English Painters.

Lecture: ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

The variety of architecture to be seen in Britain, from prehistoric monuments to the skyscrapers of modern London, provides a record for the nation's history. Buildings that are historically or architecturally important are recorded by the government as "listed buildings" and are subject to conservation laws. These buildings may not be altered without "planning permission" from the local authority, which is responsible to the Department of the Environment. If a "listed building" is demolished, a careful record of it is made by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments.

The most important prehistoric monument in Britain is the stone circle at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, which was completed during the Bronze Age. Remains of the Roman occupation of Britain can be seen in many places, including Colchester, St Albans, Bath, Caerwent and traces of the Roman wall in the north of England.

Apart from these early remains, it is the castles, churches, cathedrals and country houses of Britain that represent the architectural heritage of the country and attract tourists.

MAIN PERIODS AND STYLES Anglo-Saxon Period

(c. 700 — c. 1066)

When the Anglo-Saxons invaded England in the 5th century, four centuries of Roman Britain came to an end. From the Dark Ages (the 5th—11th centuries) only a few churches, like those at Earls Barton in Northamptonshire or Barton-upon-Humber in Lincolnshire, are left, their towers punctuated by tiny windows and their small size testifying to the poverty of the era. The oldest surviving churches date from the 10th to the 12th centuries. Churches built before the Norman Conquest were formerly called Saxon and those built after 1066 — Norman, but the style of this whole period is now usually called Romanesque.

Norman (Romanesque) and Anglo-Norman Period (c. 1066 — c. 1200)

The Normans built castles, most notably the Tower of London. Other famous castles include those at Windsor, Arundel, Dover and Norwich. In Wales there are famous castles at Caernarfon and Harlech, while Scotland has many medieval castles, which with their distinctive towers and turrets, are similar to the French chateaux on the river Loire. Edinburgh Castle is a fine example belonging to a later period, with its impressive ramparts built in the 18th century.

Romanesque cathedrals built after the Norman Conquest include those at Ely, Durham, Hereford and St Albans.

Early English (Early Gothic) Period (c. 1150 —c. 1250) Many people regard Gothic as a particularly English style. It is usually classified into three stages of development: Early English (mainly 13th century), Decorated (14th century) and Perpendicular (15th and 16th centuries). The stages are distinguished by the development of the design of the windows and the introduction of vaulting and buttressing. The pointed arch of the windows is characteristic of the whole Gothic period and distinguishes it from the Romanesque style of rounded arches. Examples of the Early English period are the cathedrals at Salisbury, Peterborough, Ripon and Wells.

Decorated and Perpendicular (Late Gothic) Period (c. 1250 —c. 1500)

This style of architecture was wide spread in the 14th and 15th centuries. It is characterized chiefly by large windows with vertical lines of tracery; wide arches, becoming flatter and squarer; rich decoration, fan vaults. Bricks and glass windows first used. Domestic architecture developed.

Examples of this style are Gloucester Cathedral, St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, King's College Chapel, Cambridge; some Oxford and Cambridge Colleges.

Later architectural periods (c. 1500 — c. 1620) include the Tudor (first half of the 16th century), with its characteristic half-timbered houses, Elizabethan (second half of the 16th century), with its sculpted and moulded ornamentation, and Jacobean (early 17th century) — a development of Elizabethan and notalways easily distinguished from it.

By 1500 the Tudor peace that suppressed the private armies of feudalism made fortifications unnecessary. Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire is a manor house with large windows on the outside as well as opening onto the courtyard. It was built not as a castle but as a home.

During the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods significant changes took place in the house. The enclosed court, a relic of the feudal castle, though still preserved in Burghley House, was generally abandoned, and houses were designed with projecting wings on either end of a certain block, and perhaps also with a shorter protrusion in the centre. The resulting plan, shaped like an E, though often said to be a compliment to Elizabeth I, was in reality the result of changed social conditions.

During the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, English architecture had fallen out of step with advanced thought on the continent. However, one architect of the time, Inigo Jones, conceived an unbounded enthusiasm for Andrea Palladio, a 16th-century Italian architect and theorist. In addition to studying his books, Jones went to examine Palladio's many buildings in Vicenza, Italy. When Jones designed the Queen's House, Greenwich, he discarded the lingering medievalisms of the Jacobean style, and substituted the restraint, order and rule of Palladio's late Renaissance manner. The plan is a perfect square with no projecting turrets or bay windows. Horizontality replaces verticality. The chimney pots, scattered in the case of the Burghley House, are grouped here and are unobtrusive. The windows, sufficient in size, punctuate the walls but do not replace them. Inigo Jones became the first great English architect to design Renaissance-Classical buildings. He is also important as a stage designer, particularly of masques.

Renaissance and Baroque Period (c. 1620 — c. 1720)

Although the Gothic style may have not originated in England, in its English version it became so completely English from the 12th through the 15th century that it did not really yield in the 16th century to the foreign style of the Renaissance. Indeed, in such simplified forms as the picturesque cottages of the Cotswald Hills in Gloucestershire, English Gothic persisted at least into the 18th century. Nevertheless, with the Tudor period, the influence of the Italian Renaissance was already beginning to make itself felt. Henry VIII (1491—1547), like his French rival FranCois I, admired and coveted the sophistication of the Italian Renaissance and did his best to induce Italian artists to come to England. Small colonies of Italian craftsmen sprang up in London and Winchester to act as both teachers and producers of work executed in the new manner. The Italianisms could at first be only superficial. Thus in Cardinal Wolsey's palace, Hampton Court, both structure and design are fundamentally Gothic, but on either side of the court doorway Giovanni da Majano inserted terracota roundels with busts of Roman emperors. The contemporary Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire has more glass than wall. Here the

Renaissance principle of symmetry was accepted, but the Gothic love of the vertical persisted in the square, towerlike forms at each corner.

From about 1640 to 1830 almost all English architecture was inspired by the legacy of classical Rome. Important examples of the classical influence are the Baroque London churches of Christopher Wren (esp. St Paul's Cathedral); the work of Vanbrugh, for example, at Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard; the elegant Georgian houses in cities such as Bath, and the work of Inigo Jones in the "Palladian" style, for example the Banqueting House at Whitehall and Somerset House on the bank of the Thames. Many large country houses such as Holkham Hall, Norfolk, and Chatsworth House in Derbyshire belong to this period.

Georgian Period (c. 1720 — c. 1830)

The main features of the period were dignity and restraint, and a special regard for symmetry. Georgian buildings are considered to be very attractive, and are often built in red brick with white stone decoration.

A particular development of the Georgian style, fashionable during the regency of the Prince of Wales (1810—20), was called Regency. Characterized by the use of stucco instead of the stone of Georgian buildings it was used especially in Brighton, Cheltenham and the terraces in Regent's Park, London.

A more complex succession of styles is to be found in the buildings of the 19th century, including the Greek and Gothic Revivals. The Greek Revival influenced the style of many public buildings such as St George's Hall in Liverpool and Leeds Town Hall. The neo-Gothic style was used especially for the many Anglican churches built during the first half of the century and was also chosen for the Houses of Parliament, built in 1840, because of their proximity to Westminster Abbey.

Victorian Period (c. 1830 — c. 1900)

A period when a great variety of styles were used, most notably that of the Gothic Revival, from about 1840 onwards. In architecture the Victorian age was characterized by the recreation of styles from the past, the use of coloured brick as decoration and by the introduction of new methods of construction using iron, steel and glass. Crystal Palace, built for Great Exhibition in 1851, and the main London railway terminals were the spectacular products of the new building methods.

Other examples of the period were: Barry and Pugin — Houses of Parliament, London; Sir G. G. Scott — Albert Memorial, St Pancras station; churches, country houses, railway stations, university buildings, all designed in elaborate, even pedantic Gothic by Pearson, Butterf ield, Waterhouse and others. Many industrial buildings were built: Paxton — Crystal Palace; Brunei — Clifton Suspension Bridge. Late in the century the ideas of William Morris encouraged the "domestic revival" of Shaw, Voysey and Mackintosh.

Twentieth Century

At the beginning of the 20th century, architects such as Philip Webb, Charles Voysey and Charles Rennie Mackintosh preferred a return to simple, undecorated style, sometimes turning to medieval styles as a model.

Until about 1920 the leading style of public building was "Imperial" — elaborate and rather old-fashioned. The arts and crafts movement left a legacy of simpler private houses and of town planning in the "garden-city" style. Modern functionalism was slow in arriving, but was encouraged by the arrival of leading German architects in the 1930s. London County Council's architectural office, headed by Sir Leslie Martin, led the other public authorities in providing large-scale housing. Prefabricated building, which meant that sections of buildings could be made in factories where work does not depend on the weather, made construction quicker and cheaper.

The expansion of universities in the 1960s led to much building. Coventry Cathedral (Sir Basil Spence) and the Roman Catholic Cathedral, Liverpool (Sir Frederick Gibberd) are among the few large religious buildings of our time. New towns, e. g. Harlow, Cumbernauld were built, as well as such buildings as the "Economist" building and Vickers Tower, London.

Popular opinion has, on the whole, favoured traditional methods of building, and contemporary architecture has been a subject of public controversy throughout the 20th century. In recent years buildings such as Richard Rogers' Lloyd's Building in London have aroused strong feelings for and against. The Prince of Wales entered, the debate by publicly condemning certain modern trends, especially criticizing a lot of the new buildings in London.

Much of the heated debate about modern versus traditional architecture has arisen when new development schemes involve the demolition of old buildings, as has happened on several occasions in the City of London. Criticism of modern architecture is strengthened by design problems of much of the often rapidly constructed public housing of the 1960s.

Landscape Architecture (Landscape Gardening)

The first great age of English gardens was the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The typical English garden of that period was a flower garden arranged in formal patterns, with bushes cut in ornamental shapes. Herbs were often grown; mazes were a feature of many gardens, e. g. the famous one at Hampton Court. The first botanic garden in England was that at Oxford, begun in 1621. Kew Gardens (a large park in the W of London, open to the public, where scientific study of the plants is carried out and which contains plants from all over the world) dates from 1749. Formal gardens continued in fashion until the 18th century when, under the influence of William Kent and Capability Brown, a freer, more natural style of landscape gardening was brought in. During the 19th century many tropical plants were introduced. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the development of woodland gardens with ornamental plants.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 2326