TEXT 2. the golden age of british art

British painting reached its zenith in the XVIII and early XIX century. Beginning with Hogarth, a school of painting appeared that could be identified as characteristically British. The one hundred years between 1750 – 1850 witnessed the development of the three art forms: portraiture, landscape and genre, which became the hallmarks of British painting.

William Hogarth was a major English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from excellent realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called “modern moral subjects”. Much of his work, though at times vicious, poked fun at contemporary politics and customs. His satire was directed as much at pedantry and affectation as at immorality, and he saw himself to some extent as a defender of native common sense against a fashion for French and Italian mannerisms.

However, up to the third quarter of the XVIII century, portraiture was practically the only form of painting in Britain. It’s quite explainable, as the Englishman’s standard of living had become very high by the middle of the century and those who had achieved success wished they could be remembered for posterity.

This demand for portraits was not successfully met by a gifted painter – Sir Joshua Reynolds, who didn’t want British art to be so provincial and isolated. It was he who insisted that English artists should be brought into line with European art and that they should develop the Grand Style of painting.

When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, it was obvious that Reynolds was the only possible choice for President. From 1769 to 1790 he delivered lectures every year at prize-giving ceremonies. These lectures were regarded as the most sensible exposition of the Academic view that by well-directed work it was possible to learn the Rules of Art and use discoveries and ideas of the old masters to create a new style of one’s own.

In these lectures Reynolds recommended that the would-be painter should put his faith in old masters, from whom he should be ready to borrow. He advised that in portraits the grace should consist more in taking the general air than in exact rendering of every feature. He suggested that the proportions of a sitter’s figure should be altered in accordance with a fixed ideal. Thus a young woman should have the proportions of goddess Diana, and her height should be exactly ten times the length of her face. He considered it necessary that the hand should be the same length as the face and the big toe should be the same length as the nose; if the ladies of the XVIII century seem impossibly tall and willow-like, it is Sir Joshua’s theories rather than the physical peculiarities of English women that are responsible for it.

In his teaching Reynolds also proposed that drapery and clothing should be the subject of rules. In his opinion it was desirable that painters in the Grand Style should paint clothing as neither woolen, nor silk, satin or velvet: it should be drapery and nothing more. The drapery shouldn’t remind one of the temporary costumes, the familiarity of which alone was enough to destroy all dignity. Thus the draperies have nothing to do with the costumes of the period and are merely imaginary dresses skillfully arranged to form an impressive frame for the aristocratic personage. Finally he taught that everything in the picture should look very natural. Thus Reynolds tried to fuse portraiture with his historical painting.

However, the painter who did most to introduce another type of subject matter into English art was Thomas Gainsborough. Being a person of a poetic nature he was the antitheses of the businesslike Reynolds. He abhorred rules and cared little about the old masters. By necessity a portraitist, he was by inclination and disposition a landscapist. His dreamlike landscapes heralded the great English school of landscape painting.

Gainsborough also composed a great many drawings in a variety of mediums including chalk, pen and wash, and watercolour, some of them varnished. He was always eager to find new papers and new techniques. He produced a magic lantern to give striking lighting effects; the box is still in the Victoria and Albert Museum, together with some of the slides. In addition Gainsborough made a series of soft-ground etchings and aquatints. He never sold his drawings and, although many of them are closely related to pictures, they are not studies in the ordinary sense but works of art in their own right.

His lead was followed in the next generation by perhaps the greatest landscapist, John Constable. Like Gainsborough he ignored the rules established by Reynolds. He insisted that art should be based on observation of nature on the one hand and feelings rather than logic and reason on the other. Constable was the herald of romanticism. But the realistic quality of his art is sensed very strongly. It was best expressed by an eccentric contemporary who put up an umbrella while looking at his landscapes.

His early style has many of the qualities associated with his mature work, including a freshness of light, colour and touch, and reveals the compositional influence of the Old Masters he had studied. Constable quietly rebelled against the artistic culture that taught artists to use their imagination to compose their pictures rather than nature itself, and his usual subjects were scenes of ordinary daily life. In order to make ends meet, Constable took up portraiture, which he found dull work – though he executed many fine portraits. He also painted occasional religious pictures

The apostle of the philosophy of romanticism was William Blake, who was bitterly opposed to the rules of Reynolds, proposing that the guiding force for creative spirit should come from imagination, not reason. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form “what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language”. His visual artistry has led one modern critic to proclaim him “far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced”.

A complete expression of romantic ideal can find itself in the pictures of J.M.W. Turner. Although his great talent was recognized at an early age he deliberately turned his back on the glittering social work of London. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.

Suitable vehicles for Turner’s imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires, natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea. One popular story about Turner states that he even had himself “tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama” of the elements during a storm at sea.

His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner’s work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France as well, the Impressionists carefully studied his techniques.

(from “The Great Century of British Painting: Hogarth to Turner”)

4. Explain the meaning of the following words and word-combinations from the text.

5. Answer the questions.

1) What art forms became the hallmarks of British painting? Characterize these art forms.

2) What did Thomas Gainsborough introduce into English art?

3) What were J. Reynolds’ artistic principles and beliefs?

4) What was J. Constable’s attitude to classical rules of Grand Style of painting?

5) Which painter is regarded as the apostle of the philosophy of romanticism and why?

6) Characterize the social stand of J.M.V. Turner. Speak of his creative activity.