the painters UK

Until the seventeenth century English painting could only speak conditionally. Miniatures or murals was present, but compared to Italian or Dutch schools British looked pale. Painting in the country was not encouraged – dominant in the ideological sphere a strict and severe puritans of all sorts of "decorations" are not welcomed.

It is not surprising that the authors of the first English paintings were not British. To start the history of English painting should be the works of the great Dutch Rubens and van Dyck, which gave a strong impetus to the development of English art. But, if Rubens paintings for Whitehall Palace in 1629 became the artist, in fact, only a brilliant Supplement career as a diplomat (he was the head of the Embassy of the Spanish king in the negotiations with Charles I of England), Anthony van Dyck was court artist to Charles, received a knighthood and was buried in London's famous St. Paul's Cathedral. Van Dyck and came after him to England, the Dutch Cornelis Ketel, Daniel Mittens, the Germans von der Faes (Peter Lely) and Gottfried Kneller (sir Godfrey Neller, a favorite of Cromwell) was a portraitist. Their paintings are distinguished by a brilliant mastery and subtlety of psychological observation. Their merits were highly appreciated. They all received a knighthood, and Neller even buried in Westminster Abbey.

The dominant genre of English painting was a formal portrait The dominant genre of English painting was a formal portrait. Historical and mythological subjects occupied a secondary place, and landscape were one. The British in the XVII century, were forced to concede the first role of brilliant foreigners. But among them was there an original artist. So, William Dobson (1610-1646) started copying paintings by Titian and van Dyck, but now Scotch lords proudly display in their castles with old paintings, many of them portraits of their ancestors painted by Dobson. Peter Lely. Girl with cherries.

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The great master of this period were Thomas Gainsborough (1727- 1788), the constant rival of Reynolds. Gainsborough, trailing his opponent in the thoroughness and accuracy of the smear technique, superior to him in originality and spontaneity in the depiction of nature.I must say, the portrait of Gainsborough was only because this genre, unlike his beloved landscape, was given the opportunity to live comfortably. However, his portraits are strikingly different from traditional. The people they really live, they are immersed in their inner world, not posing or "lost in thought about the great". So Gainsborough so many family and children's portraits – customers preferred to see their loved ones for who they are.

The Harvest Wagon 1784

Road from Market. 1767-1768

Lady in Blue (c. 1780) Portrait of Duchess de Beaufort

Perhaps the most famous masterpiece of Gainsborough "the blue Boy" (1770). Fine transmission of the inner world of quiet, dignified young men, gorgeous color - all this puts Gainsborough in some of the greatest portrait painters of Europe of the eighteenth century. For years, the picturesque style of the artist becomes more loose, easy and wide, evoking associations with the much more recent impressionism.

Lady Lloyd and Her Son, Richard Savage Lloyd, of Hintlesham Hall, Suffolk (1745–46) The Painter`s Daughters Chasing a Butterfly (1756)