British Art

I

Introduction

British Art, painting, drawing, and sculpture of the British Isles. The earlier history of art in Britain goes back at least to the Bronze Age; art in Britain flourished in Celtic times and throughout the Roman occupation, and again in the Anglo-Saxon period. However, these earlier, relatively disparate phases were the product of a diverse mix of races who colonized Britain, and it is only from the Norman Conquest that the history of British art can be traced as a coherent national tradition. Even then, the course of British art has been profoundly affected by foreign artists who settled in Britain, or spent considerable amounts of time there.

II

From the Norman Conquest to the Tudor Succession

A

Romanesque

The Norman Conquest of Britain in 1066 and the resulting displacement of the majority of the Anglo-Saxon rulers and religious leaders led to radical cultural, as well as political, changes. In the visual arts, the essentially northern European character of Anglo-Saxon art and architecture was overtaken by Romanesque forms brought from France but which ultimately traced their origins to Byzantium. However, local artistic styles were not lost completely and they make up an essential element of the mature English Romanesque style. In religious painting, this is characterized by the use of abstracted or distorted figures which are fully coloured and delineated by solid outlines. Compositions are generally formal and patterned, while physical space is indicated by rectangular background panels. The religious drama of many scenes is portrayed through the use of exaggerated facial expressions and gestures.

Numerous illuminated manuscripts were made for the new monasteries which were an essential element of the Norman establishment. Abbeys such as those of Christ Church and St Augustine at Canterbury and those at St Albans and Winchester were some of the major centres of manuscript production during the 12th century. It is not clear how much of the actual writing was done by monks, but most of the scribes and illuminators were professional artists rather than clergymen and it is sometimes possible to trace their travels through their work. They produced such famous illuminated books as the Winchester Bible (c. 1170-1180), which is preserved in the cathedral library of that city. Each book of the Bible begins with a page on which the first letter appears, surrounded by illuminations that fill the entire page; these carpet pages, as they are known, were not executed by one artist but are rather the work of many hands over several years.

Byzantine art became increasingly influential towards the end of the 12th century. This resulted in an increasing realism in the modelling of hands and drapery, in which numerous folds now showed the form of the figure beneath rather more realistically than had the abstractly rendered drapery of the earlier Winchester Bible. These changes, coupled with a decrease in the size of books and of script, heralded the transition to the Gothic style.

Apart from manuscript illumination, little painting from that time survives and the Romanesque period is best represented by ivories and stone-carving. The former were often produced in the same monastic centres as were the illuminated manuscripts, sometimes by the same artists, who used walrus rather than elephant ivory. Objects produced include book covers, altar crosses, and other religious items. As with manuscript illumination, regional styles evolved, particularly those of St Albans and Winchester.

Stone-carving and sculpture during the Romanesque period is best characterized by the ornate doorways that were created for churches. The tympanum, the area above the door itself, provided the artist with a large semicircular field within which to carve both decorative and narrative subjects, which were supplemented by ornament applied to the door jambs, arches, and capitals. The carving was often highly imaginative and amusing, combining religious and secular imagery within one small area.

B

Gothic Period

The spread of Gothic architecture from France to England in the late 12th century was accompanied by developments in sculpture. Although relatively little medieval sculpture has survived, the figures on the façade of Wells Cathedral (second quarter of 13th century) combine harmonious, monumental poses with some interest in realistically representing the structure of the human body. The English work does, however, fall below the standards of French sculpture of this period. Some of the best work takes the form of tombs, often in Purbeck marble (from Dorset), although gilt-bronze effigies were also made, such as that of Henry III (1291) at Westminster Abbey. Alabaster was another popular material, often used for altarpieces and devotional panels. As well as figure sculpture, many churches contain fine decorative carvings, which were particularly ornate in the late 13th and early 14th centuries: a fine example is the naturalistic foliage of the capitals at Southwell Minster (late 13th century) in Nottinghamshire. From the mid-14th century, sculptural decoration began to be concentrated in specific parts of the church, such as the choir screen, exemplified by that of Canterbury Cathedral (c. 1411-1430).

Little Gothic wall-painting has survived. Fine late 14th-century fragments exist at St Stephen's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, while the chapel of Eton College contains murals (1470s-1480s) in grisaille (greyish monochrome), partly by William Baker, which show a strong Flemish influence. The most remarkable medieval panel paintings are the Westminster Retable (c. 1280, Westminster Abbey) and the Wilton Diptych (late 13th or early 14th century, National Gallery, London), a beautiful work in the International Gothic style which may have been imported from the Continent. English manuscript illuminations also flourished in the Middle Ages. In the 13th century, vivid illustrations were produced at St Albans by the monk Matthew Paris. The manuscript known as the Douce Apocalypse (c.1270, Bodleian Library, Oxford) has a strong naturalistic quality, which even extends to the use of foreshortening. During the later Middle Ages, many commissions were made by private patrons for Books of Hours and other devotional texts, although, in the 15th century, the work of English illuminators was subject to severe competition from imported Flemish manuscripts. Moreover, those works that were produced show a greater realism, showing the strength of Flemish influence at this time.

III

Tudor and Early Stuart Painting

The two great political and cultural events of the 16th century (instigated by Henry VIII) were England's break with the Roman Catholic Church and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Both resulted in the disappearance of much religious painting and religious patronage in Britain. The suppression of Catholicism in England meant that English artists had little contact with many of the important developments that occurred in Italy during the Counter-Reformation, and the work of artists such as Michelangelo and Titian was almost unknown to them. Instead, English patrons turned their attention elsewhere—to two main types of artistic expression: portraiture and large sculpted tombs. Both art forms were used by the court and wealthy individuals to reinforce the importance of their lineage and assert their social status.