Painting in England in the 19th and 20th centuries

The Industrial Revolution in England greatly influenced art as a whole, and painting in particular. Such trends in painting as the genre school, realistic landscape and portraiture schools expressed the social contradictions of English life. The new trends may be traced in the works of Wilkie, Lawrence and Constable.

Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841), the leader of the genre school, preferred pictures from which a moral concerning the simple virtues could be drawn. One of his well-known pictures is “Village Politicians”. With this trend not only portraits of common people but their life and labour were introduced in art.

The second tradition that of realistic landscape was represented by John Constable.

John Constable (1776-1837) is one of the most outstanding painters, who developed his own style of painting. He was the first English landscape painter to ask no lesson from the Dutch. His originality does not lie in the choice of subjects, which frequently repeat themes beloved to another century; he ushers in a new era and this difference results at once from technique and feeling. He considered the sketch made directly from nature the first task of the painter to do. He introduced green into painting, the green of trees, the green of summer, all the greens, which until then, painters refused to see. He used broken touches of colour. He made quick sketches based on his first impressions of natural beauties. His work is important as the beginning of the impressionist school. His masterpieces are The Haywain, The Flatford Mill. In his works J. Constable gave the impetus for the development of the realistic trend in British painting, which was first developed alongside with the romantic trend.

J. Constable was an acute observer of nature and had a romantic passion for light. For him light was a mean of great importance. Constable’s treatment of skies is especially notable. No one has painted cloud effects so truthfully and depicted them with so much skill. The sparkles of light and colour in Constable’s works and the deliberate roughness of texture broke with the tradition of smooth painting. Besides the intrinsic merit of Constable’s work, it is also historically important for the effect it had on both the Romantic and the Impressionist group.

Joseph Turner (1775-1851) is a famous English painter, whose business was to paint the light. He proved that with the help of light it is possible to show qualities of any subject.

We know practically nothing about Turner’s life. The son of a London barber, he started drawing and painting when he was a little boy. When Turner was thirteen, he chose an artistic career. In 1802 Turner was elected academician of the Royal Academy, where his oil paintings had been exhibited.

He died at the age of seventy-six.

Joseph Turner was a representative of Romanticism. The description of nature dominated in his paintings. In his work with colour he anticipated, in some degree, the practice of impressionists. In his late works he anticipated sometimes the practice of expressionists of the 20th century.

Turner’s “The Shipwreck”, “Burning of the Houses of Parliament” and “Snow Storm” are masterpieces of the great artist.

In portraiture Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) continuing the manner of the 18th century introduced more realism.

In the second part of the 19th century England entered upon important stages of her artistic development. Some known painters – Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others formed themselves into a “brotherhood” with the title of Pre-Raphaelites that expressed their deep admiration for the masters who preceded Raphael Santi (1483-1530). This school had a great influence on the development of English pictorial art.

Portrait art always occupied an important part in English painting and nowadays there are prominent portraitists who continue the traditions of the famous English masters. These traditions are apparent in the portraits by Graham Suthrland (1903). Sutherland is well known for his drawings of the destruction caused by the Germans during World War II.

Realistic traditions found their expression in the works of Ruskin Spear (1911) who painted common people, their troubles and joys. Paul Hogarth (1917) is known for his drawing of scenes of life in Spain, Greece, China, etc. and greatly respected for peaceloving motives in his art.

With the 20th century impressionism, cubism, abstractionism entered English painting and certainly influenced it, though many gifted artists have found and are following their own realistic path in art. Most of the famous British painting collections may be seen in museums and art galleries of London: the Tate Gallery, the National Gallery and others.