FIVE CENTURIES OF BRITISH PAINTING: From Holbein to Hodgkin

One of the excellent Thames & Hudson World of Art series, this is an ideal starting point, a thorough and measured guide by the Curator at Tate Britain, London. It was in London that artists from abroad usually settled, and in London that the Royal Academy was established. The book concentrates on work in oil but does not ignore watercolour which played a central role in the development of the Romantic vision in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Miniature too has been a vital expression of the British sensibility, and the author has sketched its impressive origins in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Britain has played a key part in the history of art of the last five centuries in absorbing and complex ways. Wilton traces the story from its hesitant beginnings under the influence of Holbein through its maturity in the time of Hogarth and Reynolds, when it reflected a prosperous society with growing imperial influence. He explores the pioneering role of Constable and Turner in the revolutions of the Romantic period, and the enigmatic position of artists in Victorian England, when a stiff moral code came into conflict with the uncertainties of the age of Darwin. He begins with the Renaissance Princes under the Tudors and Stuarts, the Age of Improvement 1688-1750, the Age of Industry 1750-1800, Romantic Virtuosos 1800-1840, Middle-Class Mortalities 1840-1860, The Apogee of Empire 1860-1910, The Great Debate 1910-1960 and A New Reality since 1960 including of course Peter Blake and David Hockney. Superbly illustrated as one expects from Thames & Hudson quality publications. 256 glossy pages in paperback, 15 x 21cm.