English Painting
William Hogarth
Genius
is nothing but
labour
and diligence
Hogarth
Painting
in England in the 17th-19th
centuries is represented by a number of great artists. At that period it was
greatly influenced by foreign painters. Van
Dyck was invited to London by the king and he created there
the impressive, formal type of portrait. Such masters as Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Raeburn owe much to their study of
his works.
During
the 18th century a truly national school of painting was created in England. William Hogarth was the first great English painter. He raised British pictorial art to a high level
of importance. Hogarth was born in London. His father was a schoolmaster. In his early
years Hogarth showed a talent for
drawing. After finishing school he was sent as a pupil to a silver engraver. Hogarth was not a success as a
portrait-painter. But his pictures of social life brought him fame and
position. "The marriage contract” is
one of them. As a painter Hogarth
was very capable and direct in his composition. He painted many pictures. He
was sure that success had come to him due to hard labour. "I know of no such thing as
genius”, he wrote. "Genius is nothing but labour and diligence”. Hogarth is well known as a humourist
and satirist on canvas. If we call him – as he loved to call himself – "author” rather than "artist” his place
is with great masters of literature – Fielding,
Cervantes and Moliere.
Joshua Reynolds,
We
can’t but mention Joshua Reynolds, the most outstanding
portraitist of his time. Reynolds
became the first president of the Royal
academy. He was greatly influenced
by old masters and was the founder of the English
school of portrait painting.
He
was born in Devonshire in 1723. Reynolds received a fairly good education from his father who was a
clergyman and the master of a free grammar school. He went to London at 17 and again in 1744. On board the Centurion
he went to Italy. After more than two years in Rome he spent five months visiting Parma, Florence, Venice and other important cities of Italy. Returning to England, Reynolds
established himself as a portrait painter. Sir
Joshua was too successful an artist to escape the jealousy but he was said
to be "a born diplomatist”. In
1784 he was appointed painter to the king.
In the summer of 1789 his
sight began to fail but he continued occasionally to paint till about the end
of 1790. On the 23rd of February 1792, the great artist passed peacefully
away. Reynolds was all his life devoured
by what he called "a perpetual desire to advance”
John Constable
(1776-1837)
John Constable was the first English
landscape painter to ask no lessons from the Dutch. His originality doesn’t lie in the choice of subjects but in
the sphere of technique and feeling.
John Constable was born in East Bergholt in Suffolk on June 11, 1776. His father was a man of some
property, including water and wind mills. John
was devoted to painting. His passion for art increasing, he was allowed to
visit London in 1795. Only in 1799 he adopted
the profession of painting and became a student at the Royal Academy. Constable worked hard. From 1806 to 1809 Constable was engaged in painting portraits. After the death of his father he
was able to marry and settle in London. There he painted some of his well known works
such as "Flatford Mill”, "A Cottage in a
Cornfield” and "The White Horse”. In
1819 Constable’s talent was
recognized by his election to the Royal Academy.
The series of important
works was continued by "A View on the Stour”, "Salisbury Cathedral from the
Bishop’s Garden”, "The Lock”. In 1824 "The Hay Wain” was exhibited in Paris and awarded a gold medal.
The
death of his wife in 1828 was a shock from which he never wholly recovered. His
election to the academy didn’t lessen his distress. He suffered form nervous
depression and died suddenly on March, 31,
1837.
Many
of Constable’s works were bought by
his children and have passed to the English
nation. Constable was part of the Romantic period he lived in. Constable was an accurate observer of
nature and had a romantic passion for light. The country-side was his constant
subject, which he painted under all conditions or weather. His picture of a
cloudy sky was so true to life that a fellow-painter said one day, "Give me my umbrella. I’m going to look
at Mr. Constable’s pictures.” He enjoyed clouds and sunshine,
trees and hills. His sketches express the tone, colour, movement and atmosphere
of the scenery. His treatment of the skies is especially notable. The artist
liked to study the sky and he had a special word for making sketches of the sky
– "skying”. No one has painted
English cloud effects so truthfully,
or used them as a compositional quantity with so much skill.
Constable was the first to introduce
green into painting, the green
of lush meadows, the green of summer foliage, and all the greens which until
then, painters refused to see except through bluish, yellow or more often brown
glasses. His work had great effect on both the Romantic and Impressionist
groups.
Thomas Gainsborough
(1727-1788)
Thomas Gainsborough was one of the founding fathers of the British landscape school in the
18th century and one of
the most original portrait painters of his day. A good amateur violinist and a
lover of the drama, he was an artistic person.
He was born in the spring
of 1727 at Sudbury, Suffolk. Thomas was the youngest of 9
children. When a boy, he was very good at drawing, and according to a story
about him, he made such a good portrait form memory of a thief whom he had seen
robbing a garden, that the thief was caught.
At 14 he had sketched
every fine tree and cottage near his home and his father let him go to London. He studied at the academy in St.Martin’s Lane. After his return home
he married Margaret Burr and at 20
he became a householder in Ipswich. Here he painted his portraits and
landscapes.
In1759 Gainsborough went to Bath, then the general resort of wealth and
fashion. Here he expanded to the full. In Bath he painted and studied the masterpieces of Van Dyck.
In 1774 Thomas Gainsborough went to London. There he was summoned to the palace. He
painted some portraits of George III,
the queen and other members of the royal family. The artist is said to have
admitted to George III that he
preferred landscape painting to portraits but he was compelled to earn his living
by painting portraits as he could not sell his landscapes. In London he painted them from memory. They were more
nostalgic and removed from a workaday.
Gainsborough portraits
are painted in clear tones where blue and green predominate. He often placed
his figures against a landscape background. Among his famous portraits is the
portrait of Mrs. Siddons, a famous
actress in a blue dress, and a picture known as”Blue Boy” -a boy in a blue costume. In his portrait of Mrs. Siddons we see a woman in a light blue. Gainsborough’s portraits of children are full of charm. He had a
great feeling and sympathy for them. The delightful portraits of his two little
daughters have given pleasure for over 200 years, and still do.
Gainsborough’s late pictures present a
contrasting vision of the elegance of the town and the simple delights of
rustic life which is at the heart of his own complex feelings. They generate
poetic melancholy. Gainsborough painted
500 pictures. His work is the expression of a poet and a musician. He died on August
2, 1788 and
was buried in Kew
William Turner
(1775-1831)
Кто наделён талантом и одержим жаждой творчества,
тот никогда не сможет смотреть на вещи поверхностно.
Тёрнер
William Turner
was a genius of the first
order – far the greatest painter that England has ever produced. If Constable may be regarded as the splendid prose of earth, Turner gives us the poetry.
Son of a London barber he started drawing and painting as a
small boy selling his drawings to the customers of his father’s shop.
Of his life we know
practically nothing. He lived only in and for his art. It’s difficult to trace
his work step by step from its beginnings. As the barber’s son of St. Martin’s Lane he made copies of engravings he
remembered seeing in the picture dealer’s windows. At the end of his life he
was a master, who no longer served anything but his vision.
Turner lived
till he was 76. When his work came
to be listed the records showed 200 important
oil paintings, 300 water colours and
no less than 20,000 sketches and
drawings. Many of these sketches were magnificent works in themselves. Hardly
one was negligible (незначительный). Merely as industry it is a
tremendous lifework. He rightly became a god
in British painting caught in the apotheosis (обожествление) of beauty.
Despite
his fame an enormous number of his great canvases and exquisite (изысканные) water colours were his own. And the lonely
old man, dying, bequeathed (завещал) them to the nation.
Turner had a
life long passion for the sea and he
dedicated most of his paintings to it. He was a sailor and the sea absorbed
him. "Calais Pier” is one of his grandest creations. Those who look at the
picture can smell the water and hear the shout of the wind. The chief aim of Turner’s life was to see the sunrise above water. He owned a number
of houses from which he could see it happening. And he was particularly fascinated
by the line where the sun and the sea join
each other. In order to observe these effects he lived by the seaside in East Kent. The neighbors believed him to be
an eccentric sea captain, who even in retirement could not stop looking out to
sea.
Turner was
the first great artist to paint in a style absolutely outside his own time. In Turner’s time his pictures must have
looked crazy and were usually referred to as "another of Mr. Turner’s little jokes”.
Test
- …was the genius of the first
order.
a) Turner b) Constable
c) Reynolds d) Hogarth
2. … lived only in and for his art.
a) Constable b)
Gainsborough c) Turner d) Hogarth
3… was called the god of English painting
4. … was one of the founding fathers of the British landscape school.
a) Turner b) Constable
c) Gainsborough d) Reynolds
5. Blue and green predominate in the portraits of ….
a) Constable b) Hogarth
c) Gainsborough d) Hogarth
6. … liked to study the sky and he had a special word for making
sketches of the sky – "skying”.
a) Reynolds b)
Gainsborough c) Constable d) Turner
7. …was the first to introduce green into paining.
a) Hogarth b) Constable
c) Gainsborough d) Reynolds
8. His pictures of social life brought … fame and position.
a) Reynolds b) Hogarth
c) Turner d) Constable
9. … is well known as a humourist and satirist on canvas.
a) Turner b) Hogarth c)
Reynolds d) Gainsborough
10. … became the first president of the Royal academy.
a) Gainsborough b)
Hogarth c) Constable d) Reynolds
11. … was all his life devoured by "a perpetual desire to advance”
a) Turner b)
Gainsborough c) Reynolds d) Constable
12. In 1824 …was exhibited in Paris and awarded a gold
medal.
a)”The Hay Wain” b)” Calais Pier” c)”Blue Boy” d) "Flatford
Mill”
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