English School (painting)

The term English School is used to define the dominant school of painting in England. It spanned almost two centuries, from the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts on December 10, 1768, under King George III, until the end of the nineteenth century. It is characterized by the creation and the persistence of a coherent national stylistic tradition among native English painters, who were then able to rival with continental artists on the European artistic scene, and challenge French and Italian influence over pictorial creation.

Background

English painting has a long historical tradition, but it was not until the second half of the eighteenth century that it was significantly driven by English-born artists. As a result of frequent cultural exchanges between the royal courts of Europe, most of the leading artists in England were foreigners: German portraitist Hans Holbein the Young (c. 1497–c.1543) worked under Henry VIII, and Dutch Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641) defined the art of portraiture under Charles I. Following continental models, many English-born artists such as satirical painter William Hogarth (1697–1764) fought for the creation of an English Academy of Arts, in order to bring together English artists and supply national artistic identity.

The mission of the Royal Academy of Arts, located in London, was to promote English arts through education and exhibition, much like the continental models of the Royal academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris (founded in 1648), and the San Luca painting Guild in Florence (founded in 1339). Following the continental models, its purpose was to establish a high social status for artists, away from common trade and craftsmanship. It combined rigorous professional training with regular public exhibition of contemporary works, in order to stimulate healthy competition and to attain artistic excellence, as well as ensuring national and international recognition.

The eighteenth century saw radical changes in English society, which resulted in an evolution of the public’s needs for paintings. Prior to the foundation of the Royal Academy, portraits were the most represented genre, commissioned mainly by ruling monarchs and members of their families, as well as wealthy members of the English aristocracy. The development of maritime trade and the early development of the Industrial Revolution led to a change in English society, then led by its thriving middle-class. Members of the bourgeoisie imitated the royal and noble tradition of commissioning portraits and collecting art. By proving they were a major part of the English art market, with different cultural and academic backgrounds, their taste enabled additional interest in genre paintings and landscapes. Eventually, middle-class clients also helped the development of historical painting within the English school, a genre considered as the noblest one of all, yet which found its expression in painting much later in England than in France or Italy.

Overview

Art historians usually consider William Hogarth’s career as a turning point in the history of English painting, and the birth of the English school as a national stylistically coherent entity. In addition to addressing middle-class clients through the development of printmaking and satirical painting, he also tried to achieve the status of history painter through aesthetics publications and important commissions—such as The Pool of Bethesda and The Good Samaritan (1736–1737) for St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and Moses Brought before Pharaoh’s Daughter (1747) for the Foundling Hospital—and through more personal initiatives, including The Gate of Calais (1748), which illustrated the feud between France and England. Also, Hogarth did much to promote and elevate the professional status of the artist, with the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain (1761), a prelude to the Royal Academy of Arts.

As first president of the Royal Academy, painter Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) promoted the Grand Style, a form of artistic expression that derives from classical Greek and Roman antiquity and the Italian Renaissance, and relies on an idealized representation of beauty. Combining rich color and strong expressive brushstrokes, Reynolds used the influence of European Old Masters and antique sculpture references to enlarge and transform the art of English portraiture. Royal Academy classes and exhibitions conveyed his ideas and fame to the European continent. His idealized yet emotional representations of his sitters (e.g., Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse, 1784) greatly influenced his students and followers, such as Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), and were widely distributed in England and continental Europe through engravings.

With the Royal Academy’s increasing reputation, the notion of cultural identity among native English painters thrived. The annual exhibition in London ensured popularity within the British public as well as abroad. A regular participant to these exhibitions, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1789–1851) is the most renowned landscape painter within the English school. In his impressive compositions he focused essentially on the vivid rendering of light and atmospheric effects in thick, suggestive, colorful brushstrokes (e.g., Rain, Steam and Speed, 1844). His position as a teacher at the Academy, his reputation and his works’ reproduction explain the great influence he had on his students and contemporaries, as well as on later foreign artists such as the French impressionists.

In 1848, social uprisings unsettled England. Several young painters, disappointed by the education they received at the Royal Academy of Arts, and the models set by Joshua Reynolds, founded a rebellious brotherhood and called themselves the Pre-Raphaelites. They rejected the academic training based on classical antiquity and the Renaissance and favored medieval visual sources, as well as national literary ones. The members of the Brotherhood regularly sent history paintings to the Royal Academy’s exhibitions, based on medieval tales and Shakespeare’s plays, a great change from traditional portraits and landscapes. Despite innovative contemporary subjects, painters such as Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) perpetuated the tradition of history painting by elevating the public through reflections on moral and spiritual issues. Their participation in the Royal Academy as students, exhibitors, and even teachers, and their presence in Universal Exhibitions across Europe ensured the Brotherhood’s predominance and influence on the English school in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the wake of the Brotherhood, other artistic associations challenged the Academy’s hegemony, especially at the turn of the century, between the 1890s and 1914. With the rise of noninstitutional artistic societies, such as the Camden Town Group or the London Group, the cohesion of the English school of painting slowly disappeared to the benefit of independent artists favoring individualism.

Bibliography

Bindman, David, ed. The History of British Art 1600–1870, London: Tate Britain & Yale Center for British Art, 2008. Print.

Federle Orr, Lynn. The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860–1900. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2012. Print.

Hallett, Mark, and Christine Riding. William Hogarth, Exhibition Catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 20 Oct. 2006–8 Jan. 2007. Paris: Hazan, 2007. Print.

Humphreys, Richard. Tate Britain Companion to British Art. London: Tate, 2006. Print.

Lochnan, Katharine. Turner, Whistler, Monet, Exhibition Catalogue, Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand-Palais. Paris: Tate, 2004. Print.

Prettejohn, Elizabeth. The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites. London: Tate, 2007. Print.

Vaughan, William. British Painting: The Golden Age. London: Thames, 1999. Print.

Wilton, Andrew. Five Centuries of British Painting. London: Thames, 2002. Print.