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Foundations of art: The old masters in English Painting
Artists exemplified mastery in portraiture, landscapes, and historical scenes, blending classical techniques with a distinctly English sensibility. Their works continue to inspire, showcasing a golden age of art that shaped England’s cultural identity and influenced generations of painters.
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Turner – the painter of light – is the best-loved English Romantic artist
At fifteen, Turner was already exhibiting View of Lambeth. He soon acquired the reputation of an immensely clever watercolourist. A disciple of Girtin and Cozens, he showed in his choice and presentation of theme a picturesque imagination which seemed to mark him out for a brilliant career as an illustrator.
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The poetic solitude of man confronted to the “American way of life” in Hopper
Created using cold colours and inhabited by anonymous characters, Hopper’s paintings also symbolically reflect the Great Depression. Through a series of different reproductions (etchings, watercolours, and oil-on-canvas paintings), as well as thematic and artistic analysis, the author sheds new light on the enigmatic and tortured world of this outstanding figure...
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Shelley’s Art Musings – Spotlight on Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks
Edward Hopper was born in 1882 in New York. He was brought up in a comfortable family setting as was a was a good student, showing the early signs of being an artist at the age of 5. His parents encouraged this, keeping him in supplies and learning material to hone his skills. In 1899 he started a correspondence course in art and soon transferred to the New York school of art and design. He studied there for 6 years learning about oil painting, he took inspiration from Manet and Degas, yet found it shocking to sketch from live models.
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English Painting
The text below is the excerpt from the book English Painting, written by Ernest Chesneau , published by Parkstone International. Is there an English school of painting at all? Strictly speaking, the word school applies only in a very imperfect manner to the growth of painting in England. Generally it is used to designate a special collection of traditions and processes, a particular method, a peculiar style in design, and an equally peculiar taste in colouring – all contributing to the representation of a national ideal existing in the minds of the artists of the same country at the same time. In this sense, we speak of the Flemish school, the Dutch school, the…
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J.M.W. Turner
Exhibition: Turner Prize Date: 25 September 2018 – 6 January 2019 Venue: Tate Britain, UK Joseph Mallord William Turner was born at 21 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, sometime in late April or early May 1775. (The artist himself liked to claim that he was born on 23, April which is both the English national holiday, St George’s Day, and William Shakespeare’s birthday, although no verification of that claim has ever been found.) His father, William, was a wigmaker and barber. We know little about Turner’s mother, Mary (née Marshall), other than that she was mentally unbalanced, and that her instability was exacerbated by the fatal illness of Turner’s younger…
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La acuarela y el clima
Si el buen fresco es cosa de los italianos, se podría arguir que los maestros de la acuarela son los británicos. Fueron muchos – especialmente durante el siglo XIX, cuando la técnica se convirtió en una suerte de estilo nacional– los que se aprovecharon de sus múltiples ventajas. El rápido secado de la acuarela y la facilidad para el transporte del papel permitían a los artistas salir del estudio y pintar sus motivos al aire libre. Otra de las grandes ventajas de la acuarela es su versatilidad: con ella se pueden hacer rápidos esbozados así como obras terminadas, y se puede ir desde las impresiones atmosféricas hasta el detalle. Pero…
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Beaux-Arts, fromage, guillotines, and other French concepts
I started learning French about ten months ago. It was an idea that I toyed with for the ridiculously large span of one to thirteen years prior (when it was offered in middle school and my dearest mother thought Spanish would prove more useful in my future and made me study it instead – I will neither agree or disagree with that point all of these years later). Initially this venture, ten months ago, started out of spite – I was surrounded by French speakers and could never get a word in edgewise because I never knew what the hell they were talking about. I planned to learn it the…
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So Peculiarly English: topographical watercolours
So peculiarly English…. a label I just can’t seem to shake off. But what is it that makes me and fifty million others so English, and so peculiar? I love the great stereotypes of England and its mad inhabitants, with our tea-drinking, cheese-rolling, queue-respecting and morris dancing. So how disappointed must I have been when I saw that the V&A, in order to celebrate Englishness, has put on an exhibition dedicated to English watercolour painting? English watercolours are not peculiar in any way, shape or form. In fact, they are the opposite, the very essence of banality. The only peculiar thing about them is that the English were the only…
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