The Clique was a group of English artists formed by Richard Dadd in the late 1830s. Other members were Augustus Egg, Alfred Elmore, William Powell Frith, Henry Nelson O'Neil, John Phillip and Edward Matthew Ward.
They have been described as “the first group of British artists to combine for greater strength and to announce that the great backward-looking tradition of the Academy was not relevant to the requirements of contemporary art”. [1]
Information about the activities of The Clique derives mainly from the reminiscences of Frith and a short essay published in The Art Journal in 1898 by Gilbert Imray, a friend of the group. Both state that the group called themselves by this name at the time and that they formed a sketching club. Imray describes the aspirations of some members and explains that at their meetings they would all produce drawings on the same subject and ask non-artists such as Imray to judge the merits of the works. [2]
They met together at the end of the 1830s and early 1840s. The group broke up in 1843 when Dadd was incarcerated after murdering his father. The others all became successful members of the Royal Academy of Arts (though O'Neil only became an associate member, not a full member). Their work was supported by the newly founded periodical The Art Journal.[ citation needed ]
The Clique was characterised by their rejection of academic high art in favour of genre painting, following the precedents of William Hogarth and David Wilkie. This was in line with their view that art should be judged by the public, not by its conformity to academic ideals.[ citation needed ]
In the 1850s most members of the Clique became inveterate enemies of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, believing their art to be willfully eccentric and primitivist. Frith and O'Neil wrote many attacks on Pre-Raphaelite principles. However Egg became a friend and supporter of William Holman Hunt.[ citation needed ]
Portraits of members of the Clique were commissioned by Patrick Allan-Fraser for Hospitalfield House in Arbroath.[ citation needed ]
In the 1860s another group of artists with similar ideas became known as the St. John's Wood Clique.[ citation needed ]
Richard Dadd was an English painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail. Most of the works for which he is best known were created while he was a patient in Bethlem and Broadmoor hospitals.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" partly modelled on the Nazarene movement. The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse.
William Powell Frith was an English painter specialising in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works of life in the Victorian era. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1853, presenting The Sleeping Model as his Diploma work. He has been described as the "greatest British painter of the social scene since Hogarth".
English art is the body of visual arts made in England. England has Europe's earliest and northernmost ice-age cave art. Prehistoric art in England largely corresponds with art made elsewhere in contemporary Britain, but early medieval Anglo-Saxon art saw the development of a distinctly English style, and English art continued thereafter to have a distinct character. English art made after the formation in 1707 of the Kingdom of Great Britain may be regarded in most respects simultaneously as art of the United Kingdom.
Events from the year 1858 in art.
The art of the United Kingdom refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with the country since the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and encompasses English art, Scottish art, Welsh art and Irish art, and forms part of Western art history. During the 18th century, Britain began to reclaim the leading place England had previously played in European art during the Middle Ages, being especially strong in portraiture and landscape art.
Henry Nelson O'Neil was a historical genre painter and minor Victorian writer. He worked primarily with historical and literary subjects, but his best-known paintings dealt with the Indian Mutiny. Eastward, Ho!, dated August 1857 but exhibited the following year, depicts the British troops embarking for India. A second painting, Home Again (1859), shows the troops returning to England. He also had popular successes with romantic scenes portraying the deaths of Mozart and Raphael, depicted as though mentally transported to heaven by their own religious art. In The Last Moments of Mozart the dying composer listens to singers performing part of his Requiem. The Last Moments of Raphael shows the painter contemplating the unseen figure of Christ in his Transfiguration.
Augustus Leopold Egg RA was a British Victorian artist, and member of The Clique best known for his modern triptych Past and Present (1858), which depicts the breakup of a middle-class Victorian family.
Edward Matthew Ward,, was a British painter who specialised in historical genre. He is best known for his murals in the Palace of Westminster depicting episodes in British history from the English Civil War to the Glorious Revolution.
John Phillip was a Victorian era Scottish painter best known for his portrayals of Spanish life. He started painting these studies after a trip to Spain in 1851. He was nicknamed John 'Spanish' Phillip.
Frank Stone was an English painter. He was born in Manchester, and was entirely self-taught.
Philip Hermogenes Calderon was a British painter of French birth (mother) and Spanish (father) ancestry, who initially worked in the Pre-Raphaelite style before moving towards historical genre painting. He was Keeper of the Royal Academy in London.
Hospitalfield House is an arts centre and historic house in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland, regarded as "one of the finest country houses in Scotland". It is believed to be "Scotland's first school of fine art" and the first art college in Britain. It is a registered charity under Scottish law. A range of prominent Scottish artists have worked there, including Joan Eardley, Peter Howson, Will Maclean, Robert Colquhoun, Robert MacBryde, William Gear, Alasdair Gray, Wendy McMurdo, and Callum Innes.
The Derby Day is a large oil painting showing a panoramic view of The Derby, painted by the English artist William Powell Frith over 15 months from 1856 to 1858. It has been described by Christie's as Frith's "undisputed masterpiece" and also "arguably the definitive example of Victorian modern-life genre."
Victorian painting refers to the distinctive styles of painting in the United Kingdom during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). Victoria's early reign was characterised by rapid industrial development and social and political change, which made the United Kingdom one of the most powerful and advanced nations in the world. Painting in the early years of her reign was dominated by the Royal Academy of Arts and by the theories of its first president, Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds and the academy were strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael, and believed that it was the role of an artist to make the subject of their work appear as noble and idealised as possible. This had proved a successful approach for artists in the pre-industrial period, where the main subjects of artistic commissions were portraits of the nobility and military and historical scenes. By the time of Victoria's accession to the throne, this approach was coming to be seen as stale and outdated. The rise of the wealthy middle class had changed the art market, and a generation who had grown up in an industrial age believed in the importance of accuracy and attention to detail, and that the role of art was to reflect the world, not to idealise it.
The Marriage of the Prince of Wales is a painting by the British artist William Powell Frith, created in 1863-1865. It is held in the Royal Collection in London and as of July 2024 hangs in the Principal Corridor at Buckingham Palace.
Eastward Ho! is an 1858 genre painting by the British artist Henry Nelson O'Neil. It depicts troops departing to combat the Indian Mutiny embarking from Gravesend while their families bid them farewell. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in 1858. In 1859 it was displayed at Grundy's Repository in Liverpool. Today it is part of the collection of the Museum of London.
The South Sea Bubble, a Scene in 'Change Alley in 1720 is an 1847 history painting by the British artist Edward Matthew Ward. It depicts a scene in Exchange Alley in the City of London when the South Sea Bubble was at its height in 1720 shortly before its dramatic collapse. It was a centre of financial speculation and Ward depicts it in a Hogarthian manner.
The Disgrace of Lord Clarendon is an 1846 history painting by the British artist Edward Matthew Ward. It depicts a scene from the seventeenth century when the Earl of Clarendon was dismissed from his position as Lord Chancellor and effective chief minister by Charles II. Clarendon had led the Clarendon ministry since the Restoration in 1660. Despite his long service to the Cavalier cause, Clarendon was forced out and replaced by the Cabal. It is also known by the longer title The Disgrace of Lord Clarendon, after his Last Interview with the King - Scene at Whitehall Palace, in 1667
The Landing of Princess Alexandra at Gravesend is an 1864 oil painting by the British artist Henry Nelson O'Neil. It depicts the arrival of Alexandra of Denmark at Gravesend in Kent on 7 March 1863 accompanied by her family. Alexandra had arrived in Britain for her wedding with the Prince of Wales, the son and heir of Queen Victoria. The wedding took place three days later in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle and was notably painted as The Marriage of the Prince of Wales by William Powell Frith, who like O'Neil, had been a member of the artistic group The Clique.
