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. 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.
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".
Benjamin West was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as The Death of Nelson, The Death of General Wolfe, the Treaty of Paris, and Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky.
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.
John Martin was an English 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 Hay Wain – originally titled Landscape: Noon – is a painting by John Constable, completed in 1821, which depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. It hangs in the National Gallery in London and is regarded as "Constable's most famous image" and one of the greatest and most popular English paintings.
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 United Kingdom 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.
Sir Alan Bowness CBE was a British art historian, art critic, and museum director. He was the director of the Tate Gallery between 1980 and 1988.
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.
Sir Edwin Alfred Grenville Manton was an English art collector. He was a driving force in the creation of the American International Group (AIG), a collector of paintings by John Constable and his contemporaries, and a generous benefactor to the arts, the church and medicine.
Sir George Howland Beaumont, 7th Baronet was a British art patron and amateur painter. He played a crucial part in the creation of London's National Gallery by making the first bequest of paintings to that institution.
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.
George Turner was an English landscape artist and farmer who has been called "Derbyshire's John Constable".
Robert Vernon (1774–1849) was an English contractor and businessman, known as a patron of art.
Chain Pier, Brighton is a landscape painting by the British artist John Constable. One of his "six footers", it was exhibited at the Royal Academy's 1827 Summer Exhibition. It depicts the recently-constructed Brighton Chain Pier in the resort town of Brighton on the southern coast of England. The Pier was opened in 1823 and remained a prominent feature of the Brighton seafront until it collapsed in 1896.
Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds is an 1836 landscape painting by the English artist John Constable. One of his later works, it depicts a scene in the grounds of the country estate Coleorton Hall in Leicestershire. Formerly the property of the landowner and artistic patron Sir George Beaumont before his death in 1827, it features a monument commemorating the life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the Royal Academy. The monument was erected in 1812. The artist visited the property in 1823, when he did pencil sketches before developing it into a grander work more than a decade later. Constable shows it amongst the woodland of the estate, with a stag prominently featured. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition at Somerset House the same year. Since 1888 it has been in the collection of the National Gallery.
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.
