20th century - Age Of Wars

England would never again enjoy the peace it now knew. It’s long and valiant history and fighting spirit would be tested in this enormous effort to defeat it’s enemies. Generations of fine young artists and writers would perish with the flower of England’s manhood .Surviving artists before and after the conflagration responded through their art.

For the English people the twentieth century began with the funeral of the grandmother figure of Victoria who presided over the greatest empire the world has seen. The tragic wars with Germany depleted her people, and austerity following the second world war changing the face of the bombed out land forever along with the old certainties. In the devastated mediaeval towns a hasty, disjointed rebuilding programme went ahead transforming a landscape with a conservative native building tradition into one of townscapes with giant modern tower blocks.

The new society automated, industrial, dehumanised, alienated from its roots and socialist was written about by DH Lawrence in 1928 in his provocative book ‘Lady Chatterley’s lover’ in 1949 by George Orwell in his unnervingly prophetic ‘1984’, whilst Aldous Huxley wrote ‘A brave new world’ in the same vein. In 1932. What confronted artists and writers throughout the century was an ever escalating cycle of state authorised warfare in which the individual was forced to participate although at the same time it denied him his individuality and freedom.

In 1910 an exhibition arranged by the critic Roger Fry introduced English artists to post-Impressionism and fauvism. The Camden Town Group was formed in 1911 to encourage artists who were bringing a new sense of form and colour to the depiction of scenes of everyday London life. Walter Sickert, Charles Ginner, and Harold Gilman (1876–1919) were its leading figures. Artists of the Bloomsbury Group, such as Duncan Grant, Dora Carrington, and Vanessa Bell, were more adventurous in their development of the same influences.

Just before World War I Vorticism, a specifically English art movement with a harsh, mechanistic and de-personalised style appeared echoing the spirit of the time. This was created by Wyndham Lewis, one of the few artists to be directly influenced by Cubism and Futurism. Paintings by David Bomberg and sculptures by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Jacob Epstein are among the movement's main achievements.

Between the world wars, artists soon began to reflect a wide range of styles and intentions. Matthew Smith worked in a fauvist style; Christopher Wood (1901–1930), Cecil Collins (1908–1989), and L S Lowry developed a childlike ‘stick’ form.

1934 AD. Eric Gill The burial of Christ.

In a series of woodcuts harking back to the mediaeval illuminator Eric Gill’s linear designs connect us to our earliest art forms.

1947 AD. LS Lowry A river bank. The harsh industrial landscape made into a poetic statement. Line, subtle light and muted colour convey emptiness.

Using a finely detailed realism, Stanley Spencer sought to express a visionary apprehension of everyday life derived from his childhood days.

1947 AD. Stanley Spencer. The Resurrection

Artists were still coming to terms with the aftermath of the 2nd World war and it’s huge cost in human life. It was therefore quite natural for painters like Stanley Spencer to meditate on the resurrection.

1941 AD. Paul Nash. Battle of Britain. A dogfight drama played out in the Blue skies over the English Channel forms a vivid abstract design.

Ben Nicholson evolved an entirely abstract art; Paul Nash, Ceri Richards (1903–1979), and Graham Sutherland responded to Surrealism. Surrealism was also an influence on the sculptor who dominated English art of the 20th century, Henry Moore (see below)

After World War II English art became increasingly divided. A strong figurative tradition was continued in very different styles, by Francis Bacon (whose nightmarish visions are some of the most forceful expressions of contemporary spiritual despair)

Abstract painting, which has never had a strong following in England, was practised by Victor Pasmore, Patrick Heron, William Turnbull, and Bridget Riley, the leading figure in op art. Outstanding among sculptors – who also have explored a range of creative possibilities – are Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Kenneth Armitage (1916 ), Anthony Caro, Elizabeth Frink,Eduardo Paolozzi, and (more recently) Richard Long, Antony Gormley (1950)

1953 AD. Francis Bacon: Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X Nightmarish vision of the future, based on past images.

1979 AD. Henry Moore: Reclining Figure: Angles (Bronze)

A massive brooding presence, semi abstract yet still recognisably human, Henry Moore is regarded as the most significant sculptor of the 20th century.

Other important sculptors to emerge at this time were Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson (both abstract), and Jacob Epstein (who soon outgrew Vorticism), Eric Gill, and Frank Dobson (all figurative).Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, John Bratby, Keith Vaughan (1912–1976), Carel (all in varying degrees associated with pop art) and Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake and David Hockney, England’s greatest living artist.

1961 AD. Bridget Riley ‘Movement in squares’ Op Art

Bridget Riley showed the artworld something quite new which affected the design of clothes, posters and even furniture in the heady atmosphere of the 1960’s when the phrase “England swings!“ was on everyone’s lips..

David Hockney returns us to the art of the icon. His paintings are absolutely modern and yet his use of colour translates the ordinary into something quite magical. He exhibits an ambiguity of purpose in his intimate portraits such as Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy. His characterisation of the sitters in front of him is immediate and shows real insight. And once again line makes the design.

1970 – 71 AD. David Hockney Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy