The English Civil War

Once again the country was thrown into turmoil as it sought to destroy itself in the terrible way only a civil war can, with father against son and brother against brother. The artists of the time also divided themselves, some painting scenes exalting Cromwell others hoping for favours at court created images of the King- God’s anointed.

1649 AD: Robert Walker: Portrait of the English Parliamentarian General Oliver Cromwell – without warts!!

This century was marked by a cataclysm which changed the country almost as deeply as the reformation. The war between the parliamentarian roundheads and the royalist cavaliers closed the theatres, killed the poetic drama and removed court patronage of painting and sculpture. Musicians suffered too, for many relied totally on royal patronage.

Many beautiful mediaeval stained glass windows, painted rood screens, sculptures and other ‘popish’ objects of art were destroyed in an orgy of hatred against idolatry. Even the church organ was removed from many chapels on the orders of Cromwell.

Folk art and traditions marking Christmas were frowned upon and fairs and open air entertainments such as mummers plays were banned. In addition, the whole of the City caught fire in 1665 AD destroying most of the mediaeval architecture including St. Paul’s church.

Two great English architects Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor stepped forward with plans to resurrect the charred city. The poetry of Marvell, Dryden and writings of Milton, vivid descriptions of 17th century life by Samuel Pepys the diarist and John Bunyan’s allegories as well the birth of opera as a new art form allowed this birthplace of the age of ‘enlightenment’ to see out the century in a blaze of glory.

James Thornhill: Ceiling of the painted Hall, Greenwich Naval Hospital

During the Commonwealth and after the Restoration, the influence of foreign artists working in England continued. First among them was Peter Lely from Holland, and later Godfrey Kneller, who came from Germany in 1674. Those few English painters of the period to put beside Lely are John Riley (1646–91) whose fine paintings would have secured him the post of King’s court had he not been an English artist.

17th Century George Ravenscroft. English Lead crystal – a new invention. Glassware design was refined and imports from Venice ceased.

1685 AD. John Riley. A nonagenarian Housemaid Bridget Holmes.

James Thornhill (1676–1734), who worked at Greenwich and Blenheim Palace, and Robert Streater (1624–80), whose mural paintings were notable in an age of portraiture. and monuments, and Grinling Gibbons, a sculptor whose parents were English but whose youth had been spent in Holland, decorated many interiors with woodcarvings, such as panels for St Paul's Cathedral and ornamental pieces at Hampton Court His work on the St Paul's choir stalls is outstanding, including as it does the Bishop's two thrones, and the seat of the Lord Mayor.

c1674 AD. Grinling Gibbons.: Detail from seat of The Lord Mayor of London

1675-1695 AD. In music the last years of the 17th century were graced by the music of John Blow, organist composer and the exquisite Henry Purcell who was his successor at the Chapel Royal. Purcell’s melancholy strains mark the closing chapter to an age of wars both civil and against the Irish and Dutch, the great fire of London 1665, savage winters with great Thames ice fairs (the little ice age) and plague which killed one in three of London’s population.