English art is the body of visual arts made in England and is a part of the British art.
The oldest art in England can be dated to the Neolithic period, including the large ritual landscapes such as Stonehenge from 2600 BC. From around 2150 BC, the Beaker people learned how to make bronze, and use both tin and gold. They became skilled in metal refining and works of art placed in graves or sacrificial pits have survived.
In the Iron Age, a new art style arrived as Celtic culture spread across the British Isles. Though metalwork, especially gold ornaments, was still important, stone and most likely wood was also used. This style continued into the Roman period, beginning in the 1st century BC, and would find a renaissance in the Medieval period. The arrival of the Romans brought the Classical style of which many monuments have survived, especially funerary monuments, statues and busts. They also brought glasswork and mosaics. In the 4th century, a new element was introduced as the first Christian art was made in Britain. Several mosaics with Christian symbols and pictures have been preserved. The style of Romano-British art follows that of the continent, there are some local specialities, influenced by Celtic art; the Staffordshire Moorlands Pan is one example.
After Roman rule, the Anglo-Saxons brought Germanic traditions, seen in the metalwork of Sutton Hoo. Anglo-Saxon sculpture was outstanding for its time, at least in the small works in ivory or bone that are almost all that have survived. Especially in Northumbria, the Insular art style shared across the British Isles produced much of the finest work being produced in Europe until the Viking raids and invasions largely suppressed the movement.
Anglo-Saxon art developed a very sophisticated variety of contemporary Continental styles, seen especially in metalwork and illuminated manuscripts such as the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold. Effectively none of the large scale paintings and sculptures that we know existed have survived.
By the first half of the 11th century, English art was being lavishly patronized by the wealthy Anglo-Saxon elite, who valued above all works in precious metals, but the Norman Conquest in 1066 brought a sudden halt to this art boom, and instead works were melted down or removed to Normandy.
After a pause of some decades, manuscript painting in England soon became again the equal of any in Europe, in Romanesque works like the Winchester Bible and the St Albans Psalter, and then early Gothic ones like the Tickhill Psalter. Another art form introduced through the church was stained glass, which was also adopted for secular uses. There was a considerable industry producing Nottingham alabaster reliefs for mid-market altarpieces and small statues, which were exported across Northern Europe.
The artists of the Tudor court in the Renaissance and their successors until the early 18th century were mostly imported talents, often from Flanders. By the following century a number of significant English painters of full size portraits began to emerge, and towards the end of the century the other great English specialism, of landscape painting, also began to be practiced by natives. Both were heavily influenced by Anthony Van Dyck in particular, although he does not seem to have trained any English painters himself, he was a powerful influence in promoting the baroque style. One of the most important native painters of this period was William Dobson.
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During the 17th century the English nobility also became important collectors of European art, led by King Charles I and Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel in the first half of the century. By the end of the century the Grand Tour had become established for wealthy young In the 18th century, English painting finally developed a distinct style and tradition again, still concentrating on portraits and landscapes, but also attempting, without much success, to find an approach to history painting, regarded as the highest of the hierarchy of genres.
Portraits were, as elsewhere in Europe, much the most easiest and most profitable way for an artist to make a living, and the English tradition continued to draw of the relaxed elegance of the portrait style developed in England by Van Dyck, although there was little actual transmission from his work via his workshop. Leading portraitists were Thomas Gainsborough; Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the Royal Academy of Arts; George Romney; and Sir Thomas Lawrence. Joseph Wright of Derby was well known for his candlelight pictures, George Stubbs for his animal paintings. By the end of the century, the English swagger portrait was much admired abroad, and had largely ceased to look for inspiration abroad.
The early 19th century also saw the emergence of the Norwich school of painters. Influenced by Dutch landscape painting and the landscape of Norfolk, the Norwich School were the first provincial art-movement outside of London. Short-lived due to sparse patronage and internal faction prominent members include founding father John Crome, John Sell Cotman notable for his water-colours in particular and the promising but short-lived maritime painter Joseph Stannard.
Paul Sandby was called the father of English watercolour painting. Other notable 18th and 19th-century landscape painters include Richard Wilson; George Morland; John Robert Cozens; Thomas Girtin; John Constable; J. M. W. Turner; and John Linnell.
The Pre-Raphaelite [ˌpriː'ræfɪ(ə)laɪt] movement, established in the 1840s, dominated English art in the second half of the 19th century. Its members William Holman Hunt; Dante Gabriel Rossetti; John Everett Millais and others concentrated on religious, literary, and genre works executed in a colorful and minutely detailed almost photographic style.
English anti-intellectualism has led them to easily mingle fiction with observed facts, in order to invent traditions, but this has often given fresh life to traditions that would otherwise have gone stale.
Relatively few pieces survive from before the 16th century, partly because of fires such as that which destroyed Whitehall Palace in 1698. Charles I of England built up a great royal collection of art. This was mostly sold by the English Commonwealth, but Charles II was able to recover much of it, by judicious pressure on English purchasers, although many of the finest works had been sold abroad and were lost.
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There were later major additions by George III, Queen Victoria and others, so that today the Royal Collection is one of the largest in the world, despite many gifts to museums. Much of it is on display in Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Hampton Court Palace and other sites. The Queen's Gallery attached to Buckingham Palace and the Queens Gallery, Edinburgh host temporary exhibitions from the collection.
2. Describe the Ancient period of the English art.
3. Speak about the Medieval period.
4. What are the characteristic features of modern English art?
