Sir Joshua Reynolds was an English painter who specialised in portraits. Art critic John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century while Lucy Peltz says he was "the leading portrait artist of the 18th-century and arguably one of the greatest artists in the history of art." He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting, which depended on idealisation of the imperfect. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts and was knighted by George III in 1769.
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy.
Sir Thomas Lawrence was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at the Bear Hotel in the Market Square. At age ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his pastel portraits. At 18, he went to London and soon established his reputation as a portrait painter in oils, receiving his first royal commission, a portrait of Queen Charlotte, in 1789. He stayed at the top of his profession until his death, aged 60, in 1830.
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1849–50) generating considerable controversy, and he produced a picture that could serve as the embodiment of the historical and naturalist focus of the group, Ophelia, in 1851–52.
John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann, usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered primarily as a history painter, Kauffman was a skilled portraitist, landscape and decoration painter. She was, along with Mary Moser, one of two female painters among the founding members of the Royal Academy in London in 1768.
The Norwich school of painters was the first provincial art movement established in Britain, active in the early 19th century. Artists of the school were inspired by the natural environment of the Norfolk landscape and owed some influence to the work of landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age such as Hobbema and Ruisdael.
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.
George Romney was an English portrait painter. He was the most fashionable artist of his day, painting many leading society figures – including his artistic muse, Emma Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson.
John Martin was an English Romanticist painter, engraver, and illustrator. He was celebrated for his typically vast and dramatic paintings of religious subjects and fantastic compositions, populated with minute figures placed in imposing landscapes. Martin's paintings, and the prints made from them, enjoyed great success with the general public, with Thomas Lawrence referring to him as "the most popular painter of his day". He was also lambasted by John Ruskin and other critics.
The Cornfield is an oil painting by the English artist John Constable, completed from January to March 1826 in the artist’s studio. The painting shows a lane leading from East Bergholt toward Dedham, Essex, and depicts a young shepherd boy drinking from a pool in the heat of summer. The location is along Fen Lane, which the artist knew well. Constable referred to the piece as The Drinking Boy.
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.
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows was painted by John Constable in 1831, three years after the death of his wife, Maria. It is currently on display in London, at Tate Britain, in the Clore gallery. He later added nine lines from The Seasons by the eighteenth-century poet James Thomson that reveal the painting's meaning: that the rainbow is a symbol of hope after a storm that follows on the death of the young Amelia in the arms of her lover Celadon. Constable exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in 1831, but continued working on it during 1833 and 1834. The art historians Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams have described the painting as the climax of his artistic career.
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in England, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Founded by Sir Henry Tate, it houses a substantial collection of the art of the United Kingdom since Tudor times, and in particular has large holdings of the works of J. M. W. Turner, who bequeathed all his own collection to the nation. It is one of the largest museums in the country. The museum had 525,144 visitors in 2021, an increase of 34 percent from 2020 but still well below pre- COVID-19 pandemic levels. In 2021 it ranked 50th on the list of most-visited art museums in the world.
Thomas Agnew & Sons is a fine arts dealer in London that began as a print and publishing partnership between Thomas Agnew and Vittore Zanetti in Manchester in 1817. Agnew ended the partnership by taking full control of the company in 1835. The firm opened its London gallery in 1860, where it soon established itself as a leading art dealership in Mayfair. Since then, Agnew's has held a pre-eminent position in the world of Old Master paintings. It also had a major role in the massive growth of a market for contemporary British art in the late 19th century. Agnew's closed in 2013. The brand name was sold privately and the gallery is now run by Lord Anthony Crichton-Stuart, a former head of Christie's Old Master paintings department, New York.
Charles Biederman, born Karel Joseph Biederman, was an American abstract artist who lived in Chicago, New York City, and Paris before settling in Red Wing, Minnesota.
Harwich Lighthouse is an 1820 landscape painting by the British painter John Constable. It depicts a scene on the coast of Essex in England featuring Harwich Low Lighthouse. The lighthouse was maintained by Constable's patron General Rebow whose estate at Wivenhoe Park he also painted.
Gillingham Bridge is an 1823 landscape painting by the British artist John Constable. It portrays a scene of the country town of Gillingham in Dorset. It features the old bridge crossing the River Stour by the town with church tower of St Mary the Virgin in the background. Constable's friend John Fisher held the incumbency of Gillingham and Constable visited him there in 1820. He returned again in 1823 when he painted this work.
The Grove, Hampstead is an 1822 landscape painting by the British artist John Constable. It depicts a scene in Hampstead then a rural settlement on the northern outskirts of London. The main focus is The Grove, a building now known as the Admiral's House. The building features in a number of Constable's Hampstead paintings. He lived in the area and produced many views of the Heath and landmarks.
Yarmouth Jetty is an 1822 landscape painting by the British artist John Constable. It depicts a view of the jetty in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. Constable was from neighbouring Suffolk, although there is only one recorded trip he made to Norfolk during his career. A version of the painting was one of three submitted by Constable to the Salon of 1824 in Paris where his work drew great praise and he was awarded a gold medal.
