The awakening of British artists
Previously not very active, or at least not much noticed by royalty and notables, it was in the 18th century that British artists began to reveal themselves, with masters such as William Hogarth (1697-1764), Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) and Thomas Gainsborough (1725-1806). Hogarth was one of the first artists to diversify his practice: he was not only a painter, but also a printer and a well-known philanthropist who, for example, organized an exhibition at the Foundling Hospital from 1746 and founded the St. Martin Lane Academy in 1735. This was eventually absorbed into the Royal Academy in 1768, providing free education to enrolled students. Reynolds and Gainsborough dominated English art from around 1750 to 1790, enjoying extraordinary renown among the country's wealthiest personalities, and becoming the talk of the town and popular newspapers. Reynolds quickly established a reputation as a fashionable London portraitist, and was the first president and co-founder of the Royal Academy. His published speeches delivered to students are considered the first major writings on English art. Atypical, Reynolds was both a traditionalist and an innovator: he paved the way for modernity by synthesizing and transforming past schools. His influence on nineteenth-century artists was significant. Reynolds' main rival was William Gainsborough. Rival, but also friend, depending on the period, with a mutual respect that never wavered. His main influences came from France for portraits and the Netherlands for landscapes, Van Dyck being one of his favorite painters. He stands out for his intimate portraits and poetic, imaginary landscapes rendered with light, brilliant brushstrokes. Full recognition of his landscapes only came in the 20th century.
The late 18th and early 19th centuries were characterized by British Romanticism, with Londoners William Blake (1757-1827), John Constable (1776-1837) and J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), the latter arguably the most internationally influential of British artists and still the most admired today. Turner traveled extensively throughout his career, first to England and Scotland, then to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Italy. He visited Italy in 1819 and turned away from realism towards a singular impressionism. He is said to have tied himself to the mast of a ship during a storm, the better to observe the natural spectacle before his eyes. As for William Blake, he is renowned for his remarkable allegorical watercolors, but also for composing, illustrating and printing poems imbued with obscure mysticism, in a visionary style. He exerted a notable influence on 20th-century modernist artists, notably the British painters of the Bloomsbury Group. William Blake also had a strong influence on the Beat Generation poets of the 1950s and the counter-culture of the 1960s.
Pre-Raphaelites at the School of London
Victorian art and the Pre-Raphaelites were born in London in 1848. Pre-Raphaelitism took as its model the paintings of the 15th-century Italian masters who were Raphael's predecessors. They all rejected academic conformism and sought to rediscover the clear, lively, lilting tonalities of the great masters of yesteryear. Biblical themes, the Middle Ages, literature and poetry (Shakespeare, Keats, Browning...) inspired these artists. The leading figures were John Everett Millais (1829-1896), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) and animal painter Edwin Landseer (1802-1873). Towards the end of the century, these artists often made money by selling the reproduction rights to their paintings to publishers and printers. Landseer's works, particularly Monarch of the Glen (1851), were very popular. This painting served as inspiration for English graphic artist and designer Peter Saville (among others, artistic director of the bands Joy Division and New Order) for a tapestry named After, After, After Monarch of the Glen in 2017.
Francis Bacon (1909-1992) is a major figure of 20th-century modernism. Driven from his family home by his parents, who rejected him because of his homosexuality, he traveled and discovered the realist works of George Grosz, Otto Dix and Max Beckmann in Berlin in 1927. He moved to London in 1929. Bacon, who began his career in earnest during the war, saw his work come to the fore in 1944 with Three Studies of Figures at the Foot of a Crucifixion (Tate Modern), which shocked visitors. Bacon's main focus was on portraiture, on the human subject, which he painted mercilessly and unvarnished. For this, he draws on classical painting and its figures (Titian, Velázquez, Grünewald, Van Gogh, Picasso and the Expressionists), which he renews through the great tragedies of the 20th century. He also drew inspiration from other media, such as the cinema of Eisenstein, Stroheim and Buñuel, photography (the movements of Edward Muybridge) and even medical imagery. His companion, George Dyer, is his best model for expressing the tormented image of modern man torn apart by an oppressive society. For most of his artistic life, he worked from a modest studio at 7 Reece Mews in South Kensington.
Lucian Freud (1922-2011) was the grandson of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. From 1939 to 1943, he studied art in London. Like Francis Bacon, his work was inspired by German artists such as Otto Dix. Freud's life and art are inseparable. He projected his whole being in the portraits he created. We find his existential questions under a thick layer of paint. He tried to represent all the truths that make up each of us, without pomp and circumstance. Nude bodies posing on the battered sofa in his studio, on the mattress, in the crumpled sheets surrounded by walls smothered in layers of paint, are the artist's favorite subjects, and he casts a raw, unkind, unsentimental eye on them.
Born in London, British photographer Cecile Beaton (1904-1980 ) photographed the greatest stars, from Marilyn Monroe to Churchill. A talented portraitist renowned the world over, he was also a renowned fashion photographer, as evidenced by his long collaboration with Vogue Britain, for which he made his first cover in 1932. Dismissed from the magazine in the 1950s, he became a freelance photographer and set designer. Few London photographers have made such an impact on the history of photography.
From Pop art to street art
In 1956, a new movement was launched from England, based on a photomontage by photographer Richard Hamilton. The work, entitled Just What Is It That Makes Today's Home so Different, so Appealing? introduced the pop art movement, and in particular its references to popular culture, of which David Hockney is today one of the most eminent exponents.
David Hockney, born in Bradford in 1937, is one of the best-known and most popular living artists. Influenced by Francis Bacon and Picasso, his "Love Paintings" and pop art paintings are known the world over. Description Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is his best-known work. It made headlines in November 2018 when it became the most expensive work ever sold ($90.3 million) at auction in the artist's lifetime. In 2017, a major retrospective exhibition was held at the Centre Pompidou in collaboration with London's Tate Britain.
As for Howard Hodgkin, born in Hammersmith in 1932 and recently deceased in London in 2017, he remains one of the most important contemporary artists. He was one of the masters of abstraction.
We must also mention the artist duo Gilbert and Georges, who have been together ever since they met at St Martin's School of Art in London in 1967. Dressing identically, they decided to become living sculptures. Their artistic project is based on their personal lives, with favorite themes including sex, violence, death and religion. Their work, based on intimate obsessions, also reflects the topicality of the contemporary world. The influence of advertising and marketing can be felt in the design of their work.
London is at the origin and center of this new contemporary art movement, often referred to as "Britart". "Young British Artists" is the name given to the artists who took part in a series of exhibitions initiated by the Saatchi gallery in 1992. Charles Saatchi exhibits and finances young artists. Widely supported by the media, these exhibitions dominated the art scene in the 1990s, as they were provocative and transgressive. The British public witnessed a media battle that raised many debates about contemporary British art. While Damien Hirst is certainly the best-known artist of the movement - he exhibits a shark cut into pieces and preserved in formaldehyde - there are many others, each more provocative than the last: Sarah Lucas, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Sam Taylor Wood, Chris Ofili's representation of a black Virgin, and works composed using urine, excrement or blood. And it wasn't the numerous criticisms levelled at the movement that changed anything - on the contrary, they seem to have even helped its notoriety. However, after reaching its peak with some of these young artists winning the Turner Prize, it seems that the movement is running out of steam.
As for street art, London has nothing to envy other capitals, and some districts are open-air museums. Bansky, the best-known British street artist, was not born in London, but in Bristol. Yet he's very active in the capital. Over the weekend of May 3-5, 2008, Banksy organized an exhibition entitled The Cans Festival, located on Leake Street, a road tunnel once used by Eurostar under London's Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to participate and paint their own works of art, as long as they didn't cover those of others. Banksy invited artists from all over the world to exhibit their work. Today, street art in London has earned its rightful place among the fine arts.
