The 21st century- A New Chapter in an Old book.

We have seen the way in which English art has changed throughout the ages, adapting and transforming the imagery and style it has made its own.

The quality of line has ever exerted its magic over the English artist, the ever changing light of the English climate has affected the painter with its changeable flashes of lightness and shadows. The natural beauty of the landscape has captivated and the native interest in ambiguity has guided us from the early carved prows with their intertwining abstract and organic features to the modernist painting.

The beauty of the 8th century illuminated manuscript is matched by the 19th century engraver who uses the same subjects. The deceptive simplicity of the early medieval painting is complemented by the purity of the Pre Raphaelite artist. Our world would be the poorer without the majestic Sutton Hoo helmet, the brilliance of Nicholas Hilliard’s miniatures, Hogarth’s social comments, Gainsborough’s and Reynold’s portraits, Constable’s ‘Haywain’, William Blake’s mysticism, Turner’s skies, Aubrey Beardsley’s audacious designs, Henry Moore’s brooding monuments, Lowry’s matchstick figures, Sutherland’s sleepers, Bridget Riley’s dazzling optics and David Hockney’s beautiful lines and colours. The art of Lucien Freud and Damien Hirst stuns our senses. We have much for which we can give thanks.

David Hockney. Garrowsby Hill. Painted in 2004.

Where now for English art?

Possibly to paint, sculpt, form, write about English ethnicity? The roots of the English people. To define their ethnicity in art? The challenge is there for all artists.