19th Century, Consolidation of Empire

The sacrifices made on land and sea by the fighting men of Wellington’s army and Nelson’s navy had ensured peace and security at the beginning of the century. There was great rejoicing in the nation as once again England had resisted and overcome a foreign invasion force. Paintings of the victors of Waterloo and Trafalgar were made and a state funeral of great magnificence was given to honour Lord Nelson. The statue above was completed ten years after its beginning, by which time Trafalgar Square was being built.

1821 AD John Constable: The Haywain A Suffolk idyll.

Possibly the most famous and iconic of all English landscape paintings.

1822 AD. John Constable: Salisbury Cathedral.

Two views of churches. Contrast the elevated scene above by John Constable with its feeling of soaring skies and space to Samuel Palmer’s (below) more intimate, shrouded parish church set deep in a Kentish valley.

1830 AD. Samuel Plamer. Coming from evening church. Tempera on canvas.

Constable and Turner gave a depth and range to landscape painting that made it not only one of the most popular expressions of English art, but also one of its most important. Their achievements were complemented by a host of other landscape painters, including Richard Cozens, Thomas Girtin, and David Cox.

19th Century: Light and colour, line and design.

From the middle part of the century whilst the impressionists began to explore painting ‘out of doors’ for the first time, English art reverted to type once again. Exploring the great literature of the Bible, Milton and Shakespeare the pre-Raphaelites were redefining their links to a pre- industrial and pre –camera era which heralded the nationalistic arts and crafts movement.

1838 AD JMW Turner. The ‘Fighting Temeraire’ towed to her last berth.

Contrasting views of nature-The ‘impressionism’ of Turner with his open stretches of sky and the intimacy of Holman Hunt.

1851 AD. William Holman Hunt: Our English coasts

William Holman Hunt’s contribution to English art is one of the highest merit showing a delight in light and colour as well as narrative content.

The Pre-Raphaelites believed in a return to the purity of style of Raphael. This movement, which was established in the 1840s, dominated English art for the rest of the century. Its members – such as Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Everett Millais – concentrated on religious, literary, and everyday subjects, using the bible and Shakespeare as favourite sources to display their style which was colourful and minutely detailed.

1851 Two vsions of Shakespeare’s Ophelia

John William Waterhouse - Ophelia

John Everett Millais - Ophelia

At first ridiculed, the style of the Pre-Raphaelites produced a host of popular imitators. In the late 19th century the Arts and Crafts Movement, dominated by William Morris, promoted a revival of crafts and good design. Book illustration, a revival of which had been inaugurated by Thomas Stothard at the beginning of the century, flourished under the inspiration of both the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement, its leading practitioners being Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, Aubrey Beardsley, Randolph Caldecott, John Tenniel, and William Morris.

1894 AD. Aubrey Beardsley. The peacock skirt from the book ‘Salome’

1894 AD. A William Morris design.

Arts and Crafts Movement.

With its inspiration drawn from nature and with a strong similarity to early English stylisation of form, the Arts and Crafts Movement produced freshly conceived, well designed articles in reaction to mechanised production. Domestic furniture, wall coverings, tapestries and book illustrations were made with the flavour of the country craftsmen behind them. Art workshops were set up by William Morris and between them the group transformed the artistic outlook of the nation.

The period in which the Pre-Raphaelite ‘brotherhood’ flourished was relatively short spanning the middle decades of the 19th century but their recognition continued to grow influencing the symbolist movement and inspiring Casper David Freidrich in Germany and Edvard Munck in Norway amongst others, whilst the Arts and Crafts Movement was joined in spirit by other artists across Europe in protest against mass production which they felt was destroying the livelihood of the artisan.

1865 AD. John Ballantyne’s portrait of Edwin Landseer at work creating the Trafalgar Square lions which were later cast in bronze..

1886 AD. George Watts.: ‘Hope’- Symbolism’s pioneer.

Alongside George Watts, who made his name with allegories that expressed Victorian pieties; William Etty, who was one of the few artists to concentrate on the nude; Edward Landseer, who specialized in animal pictures; and Lord Leighton who made his reputation with lavish recreations of ancient Greek and Roman life.

English Impressionists founded the New English Arts Club in 1886, and French influence, which continued well into the 20th century, can be seen in the work of Wilson Steer, John Singer Sargent (an American working in England), Walter Sickert, and Augustus John.and James McNeil Whistler

The century ended in the full expectation that the Empire created by the 16th century English adventurers would “last a thousand years”, -after all was not Victoria queen of a vast territory on which the sun quite literally never set?

But all that was to change. The Empress of India died in 1901 and much of her extended family in Germany and Russia was no longer under the guidance of this departed ‘mother of Europe’.

Prussia had its own ambitions and Europe once again became a bed of intrigue and division. France and Germany were contesting divided territory...