British painting in the 17-18th centuries (Британская живопись 17-18 вв.)
1) Some Famous Illuminated Manuscripts.
It is usual to regard English painting as beginning with the Tudor
period and for this are several reasons. Yet the fact remains that
painting was practised in England for many hundred years before the first
Tudors came to the throne.
The development of the linear design in which English artists have
always excelled can be traced back to the earliest illuminations
brilliantly evolved in irish monastic centres and brought to Northumbria in
the seventh century. Its principal feature is that wonderful elaboration
of interlaced ornament derived from the patterns of metal-work in the
Celtic Iron Age, which is to be found in the Book of Kells and Lindesfarne
Gospel, its Northumbrian equivalent.
The greatest achievement in Irish manuscript illumination, the Book
of Kells is now generally assigned to the late eighth or early ninth
century. The Book of Kells is a manuscrept of the gospes of rather large
size(33*24 cm)written on thick glazed vellum. Its pages were originally
still larger; but a binder, a century or so ago, clipped away their
margins, cutting even into edges of the illuminations. Otherwise the
manuscript is in relatively good condition, in spite of another earlier
misadventure. The great gospel, on account of its wrought shrine, was
wickedly stolen in the night from the sacresty of the church and was found
a few months later stripped of its gold, under a sod. Finally the
manuscript passed to trinity college, where it is today.
No manuscript approaches the book of kells for elaborate
ornamentation. A continuous chain of ornamentation runs through the text.
The capitals at the beginning of each paragraph--two, three, cour to a page-
-are made of brightly coloured entwinements of birds, snakes, destorted men
and quadrupeds, fighting or performing all sorts of acrebatic feats. Other
animals wander about the pages between the lines or on top of them.
The thirteenth century had been the century of the great cathedrals,
in which nearly all branches of art had their share. Work on these immense
enterprises contunued into the fourteenth century and even beyond, but they
were no longer the main focus of art. We must remember that the world had
changed a great deal during that peiod. In the middle of the twelfth
century Europe was still a thinly populated continent of peasants with
moasteries and baron's castles as the main centres of power and learning.
But a hundred and fifty years later towns had grown into centres of trade
whose burghers felt increasingly independent of the poweof the Church and
the fuedal lords. Even the nobles no longer lived a life of grim seclusion
in their fortified manors, but moved to the cities with their comfort and
fashionable luxury there to display their wealth at the courts of the
mighty. We can get a very vivid idea of what life in the fourteenth
century was like if we remember the works of Chaucer, with his knights and
squires, friars and artisans.
The love of fourteenth-century painters for graceful and delicate
details is seen in such famous illustrated manuscripts as the English
Psalter known as Queen Mary's Psalter(about 1310). One of the pages shows
Christ in the temple, conversing with the learned scribes. They have put
him on a high chair, and he is seen explaining some point of doctrine with
the characteristic gesture used by medieval artists when they wanted to
draw a teacher. The scribes raise their hands in attitude of awe and
astonishment, and so do Christ's parents, who are just coming on to the
scene, looking at each other wonderingly. The method of telling the story
is still rather unreal. The artist has evidently not yet heard of Giotto's
discovery of the way in which to stage a scene so as to give it life.
Christ is minute in comparison with the grown-ups, and there is no attempt
on the part of the artist to give us any idea of the space between the
fugures. Moreover we can see that all the faces are more of less drawn
according to one simple formula, with the curved eyebrows, the mouth drawn
downwards and the curly hair and beard. It is all the more surprising to
look down the same page and to see that another scene has been added, which
has nothing to do with the sacred text. It is a theme from the daily life
of the time, the hunting of ducks with a hawk. Much to the delight of the
man and woman on horseback, and of the boy in front of them, the hawk has
just got hold of a duck, while tow others are flying away. The artist may
not have looked at real boys when he painted the scene above, but he had
undoubtedly looked at real hawks and ducks when he painted the scene below.
Perhaps he had too much reverence for the biblical narrative to bring his
observationn of actual life into it. He preferred to keep the two things
apart: the clear symbolic way of telling a story with easily readable
gestures and no distracting details, and on the margin of the page, the
piece from real life, which reminds us once more that this is Chaucer's
century. It was only in the cours of the fourteenth century that the two
elements of this art, the graceful narrative and the faithful observation,
were gradually fused. Perhaps this would not have happened so soon without
the influence of Italian art.
2) 16th and 17th Centuries.
When Henry VII abolished Papal authority in England in 1534 and
ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 he automatically brought
to an end the tradition of religious art as it had been practised in the
middle ages and in monastic centres. The break was so complete that
painting before and after seem entirely different thing, in subject, style
and medium. The local centres of culture having vanished, the tendency of
painting to be centralized in London and in the service of the court was
affirmed. Secular patronage now insisted on portraiture, and the habit
grew up of useng foreign painters--an artificial replacement of the old,
international interchange of artists and craftsmen. Yet the sixteenth
century was the age of Humanism which had created a new interest in the
human personality.
3) Painting In The 16th --17th Centuries.
In the sixteenth century Holbein came to England, bringing with him a
much more highly developed pictorial tradition with a much fuller sense of
plastic relief. Holbein himself was a supreme master of linear design; he
could draw patterns for embroidery and jewellery as no one else, but he
never entirely sacrificed the plastic feeling for form to that, and in his
early work he modelled in full light and shade. Still, it was not
difficult for him to adapt himself somewhat to the English fondness for
flat linear pattern. Particularly in hes royal portraits, e.g. the
portrait of Henry VIII, we find and insistence on the details of the
embroidered patterns of the clothes and the jewellery, which is out of key
with the careful modelling of hands and face.
Finally, by Elizabeth's reign almost all trace of Holbein's plastic
feeling was swept away and the English instinct for linear description had
triumphed completely.
But the English were not left long in peace with their linear style.
Charles I, who had travelled abroad was bound to see that Rubens
represented a much higher conception of art than anything England
possessed, and invited him over. He was followed by Van Dyck, who came to
stay. And although he too could not help feeling the influence of the bias
of English taste and learned to make his images more flatly decorative and
less powerfully modelled, than had been his wont, none the less, he set a
new standard of plastic design, and this was carried on by Lely. Lely was
not a great artist, but he was thoroughly imbued with the principles of
three demensional plastic design. Though his portraits lack psychological
subtlety, and fail to reveal clearly the sitter's individuality, they are
firmly and consistently constructed.
Kneller of the next generation caried on the same tradition.
What of native English talent? The approach of the Civil war stripped
away the polish and brought out a sterner strain of character no less in
the aristocratic opponents. In the realism with which he depicted the
militant Cavalier, William Dobson(1610-46) marks a breakaway from Van
Dyckian elegance. Born in London, Dobson comes suddenly into prominence in
royalist Oxford after the Civil War had broken out.
The painting of Endymion Porter, thefriend and agent of Charles I in
the purchase of works of art, is generally accounted Dobson's masterpiece.
The most striking aspect of the work is its realism. Though Endymion
Porter is portrayed as a sportsman who has just shot a hare, there is a
stern look about his features which seems to convey that this is wartime.
The solemnity of the times is also reflected in the portraiture
produced during the Commonwealth period and one would naturally expect an
even greater refection of elegance than that of Dobson during the Puritan
dominance. Indeed a prospect of unsparing realism is set out in Cromwell's
admonition--to "remark all these ruffness, pimples, warts" and paint "
everything as you see in me".
The corresponding painter to Dobson on the Parliamentary side,
however, Robert Walker, was a much less original artist and still closely
imitated Van Dyck's graceful style.
A number of other portrait painters are of interest by reason of
their subjects. John Greenhill (c. 1644--76) is of some note as one of the
first artists to depict English actors in costume. John Riley (1646--91)
was an artist whose work is distinguished by a grave reticence. In
succession to Lely he painted many eminent people, including Dryden, and
