English art is the body of visual arts made in England. England has Europe's earliest and northernmost ice-age cave art.^[1] Prehistoric art in England largely corresponds with art made elsewhere in contemporary Britain, but early medieval Anglo-Saxon art saw the development of a distinctly English style,^[2] and English art continued thereafter to have a distinct character. English art made after the formation in 1707 of the Kingdom of Great Britain may be regarded in most respects simultaneously as art of the United Kingdom.

Medieval English painting, mainly religious, had a strong national tradition and was influential in Europe.^[3] The English Reformation, which was antipathetic to art, not only brought this tradition to an abrupt stop but resulted in the destruction of almost all wall-paintings.^[4][5] Only illuminated manuscripts now survive in good numbers.^[6]

There is in the art of the English Renaissance a strong interest in portraiture, and the portrait miniature was more popular in England than anywhere else.^[7] English Renaissance sculpture was mainly architectural and for monumental tombs.^[8] English Gothic architecture and art flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. Interest in English landscape painting had begun to develop by the time of the 1707 Act of Union.^[9]

Substantive definitions of English art have been attempted by, among others, art scholar Nikolaus Pevsner (in his 1956 book The Englishness of English Art),^[10] art historian Roy Strong (in his 2000 book The Spirit of Britain: A narrative history of the arts)^[11] and critic Peter Ackroyd (in his 2002 book Albion).^[12]

The earliest English art – also Europe's earliest and northernmost cave art – is located at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire, estimated at between 13,000 and 15,000 years old.^[14] In 2003, more than 80 engravings and bas-reliefs, depicting deer, bison, horses, and what may be birds or bird-headed people were found there. The famous, large ritual landscape of Stonehenge dates from the Neolithic period; around 2600 BC.^[15] From around 2150 BC, the Beaker people learned how to make bronze, and used both tin and gold. They became skilled in metal refining and their works of art, placed in graves or sacrificial pits have survived.^[16]

In the Iron Age, a new art style arrived as Celtic culture and spread across the British isles. Though metalwork, especially gold ornaments, was still important, stone and most likely wood were also used.^[18] This style continued into the Roman period, beginning in the 1st century BC, and found a renaissance in the Medieval period. The arrival of the Romans brought the Classical style of which many monuments have survived, especially funerary monuments, statues and busts. They also brought glasswork and mosaics.^[19] In the 4th century, a new element was introduced as the first Christian art was made in Britain. Several mosaics with Christian symbols and pictures have been preserved.^[20] England boasts some remarkable prehistoric hill figures; a famous example is the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire, which "for more than 3,000 years ... has been jealously guarded as a masterpiece of minimalist art."^[21]

After Roman rule, Anglo-Saxon art brought the incorporation of Germanic traditions, as may be seen in the metalwork of Sutton Hoo.^[22] Anglo-Saxon sculpture was outstanding for its time, at least in the small works in ivory or bone which are almost all that survive.^[23] Especially in Northumbria, the Insular art style shared across the British Isles produced the finest work being produced in Europe, until the Viking raids and invasions largely suppressed the movement;^[24] the Book of Lindisfarne is one example certainly produced in Northumbria.^[25] Anglo-Saxon art developed a very sophisticated variation on contemporary Continental styles, seen especially in metalwork and illuminated manuscripts such as the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold.^[26] None of the large-scale Anglo-Saxon paintings and sculptures that we know existed have survived.^[27] The two periods of outstanding achievement were the 7th and 8th centuries, with rich metalwork and jewellery and a series of magnificent illuminated manuscripts, and the final period after about 950, when there was a revival of English culture after the end of the Viking invasions.^[28][29]

The Anglo-Saxons were skilled artisans, renowned for their craftsmanship in creating elaborate jewellery and musical instruments. Additionally, they were enthusiastic narrators, often congregating in feasting halls to share captivating tales.^[31] As in most of Europe at the time, metalwork was the most highly regarded form of art by the Anglo-Saxons. Anglo-Saxon taste favoured brightness and colour. Opus Anglicanum ("English work") was recognised as the finest embroidery in Europe. Perhaps the best known piece of Anglo-Saxon art is the Bayeux Tapestry which was commissioned by a Norman patron from English artists working in the traditional Anglo-Saxon style. Anglo-Saxon artists also worked in fresco, stone, ivory and whalebone (notably the Franks Casket), metalwork (for example the Fuller brooch), glass and enamel. Medieval English painting, mainly religious, had a strong national tradition and was influential in Europe.^[32][33]

Anglo-Saxon brooches are a large group of decorative brooches found in England from the fifth to the eleventh centuries. In the early Anglo-Saxon era, there were two main categories of brooch: the long (bow) brooch and the circular (disc) brooch. The long brooch category includes cruciform, square-headed, radiate-headed, and small-long brooch brooches. The long brooches went out of fashion by the end of the sixth century. The circular brooch form developed from jewelled disc brooches produced in Kent in the early sixth century. In the early Anglo-Saxon era, the circular brooch type included the saucer, the applied saucer, the button, the annular (circular ring form), the penannular (incomplete ring), and the quoit (double ring, one of each of the previous types) brooches. The circular was the most common brooch form during the middle to late Anglo-Saxon era, with the enamelled and non-enamelled circular brooches being the predominant brooch styles. There are a few styles that fall into the miscellaneous category. These include the bird and S-shaped brooch of the early Anglo-Saxon era and the safety-pin, strip, ottonian, rectangular, and bird motif of the middle to late Anglo-Saxon era. The best-known examples of Anglo-Saxon brooches are the Sutton brooch, the Sarre brooch, the Fuller Brooch, the Strickland Brooch, and the Kingston Brooch.^[34]

The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork yet found^[update]. Discovered in a field near the village of Hammerwich, it consists of over 3,500 items^[36] that are nearly all martial in character and contains no objects specific to female uses.^[37][38] It demonstrates that considerable quantities of high-grade goldsmiths' work were in circulation among the elite during the 7th century. It also shows that the value of such items as currency and their potential roles as tribute or the spoils of war could, in a warrior society, outweigh appreciation of their integrity and artistry.^[39]

By the first half of the 11th century, English art benefited from lavish patronage by a wealthy Anglo-Saxon elite, who valued above all works in precious metals.^[40] but the Norman Conquest in 1066 brought a sudden halt to this art boom, and instead works were melted down or removed to Normandy.^[41] The so-called Bayeux Tapestry – the large, English-made, embroidered cloth depicting events leading up to the Norman conquest – dates to the late 11th century.^[42] Some decades after the Norman conquest, manuscript painting in England was soon again among the best of any in Europe; in Romanesque works such as the Winchester Bible and the St. Albans Psalter, and then in early Gothic ones like the Tickhill Psalter.^[43] The best-known English illuminator of the period is Matthew Paris (c. 1200–1259).^[44] Some of the rare surviving examples of English medieval panel paintings, such as the Westminster Retable and Wilton Diptych, are of the highest quality.^[45] From the late 14th century to the early 16th century, England had a considerable industry in Nottingham alabaster reliefs for mid-market altarpieces and small statues, which were exported across Europe.^[46] Another art form introduced through the church was stained glass, which was also adopted for secular uses.^[47]

English Gothic flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century.^[48][49] The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. The defining features of English Gothic architecture are pointed arches, rib vaults, buttresses, and extensive use of stained glass. The primary characteristics of early English glass are deep rich colours, particularly deep blues and ruby reds, often with a streaky and uneven colour, which adds to their appeal; their mosaic quality, being composed of an assembly of small pieces; the importance of the iron work, which becomes part of the design; and the simple and bold style of the painting of faces and details.^[50] Combined, these features allowed the creation of buildings of unprecedented height and grandeur, filled with light from large stained glass windows. Important examples include Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral. The Gothic style endured in England much longer than in Continental Europe.

The earliest large-scale applications of Gothic art in England were Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. Many features of Gothic architecture had evolved naturally from Romanesque architecture (often known in England as Norman architecture). The first cathedral in England to be both planned and built entirely in the Gothic style was Wells Cathedral, begun in 1175.^[51][52] After a fire destroyed the choir of Canterbury Cathedral in 1174, it was rebuilt in the new Gothic style between 1175 and 1180. The transition can also be seen at Durham Cathedral, a Norman building which was remodelled with the earliest rib vault known. Besides cathedrals, monasteries, and parish churches, the style was used for many secular buildings, including university buildings, palaces, great houses, and almshouses and guildhalls.

The English Reformation initiated a significant wave of iconoclasm that led to the destruction of nearly all medieval religious artwork, effectively diminishing the practice of painting in England. Nevertheless, during the Tudor dynasty, England emerged as a vibrant center for the fine arts. An international network of artists and merchants, many fleeing religious persecution, sought refuge in England, where they found royal patronage.^[54] Although there was an absence of indigenous visual arts, Gothic construction, craft, and ornately designed ceilings continued to thrive. The craftsmanship of woodwork was regarded as a distinctive English specialty.^[55][56] During the later Tudor period, particularly in the Elizabethan era, there was a significant flourishing of the arts. Queen Elizabeth I was a prominent patron of various artistic endeavors and crafts, with a particular emphasis on wool production, as well as trade and industry, including shipbuilding.^[57]

Nicholas Hilliard (c. 1547–7 January 1619) – "the first native-born genius of English painting"^[58] – began a strong English tradition in the portrait miniature.^[59] The tradition was continued by Hilliard's pupil Isaac Oliver (c. 1565–bur. 2 October 1617). Other notable English artists across the period include: Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627); John Bettes the Elder (active c. 1531–1570) and John Bettes the Younger (died 1616); George Gower (c. 1540–1596), William Larkin (early 1580s–1619), and Robert Peake the Elder (c. 1551–1619).^[60] The artists of the Tudor court and their successors until the early 18th century included a number of influential imported talents: Hans Holbein the Younger, Anthony van Dyck, Peter Paul Rubens, Orazio Gentileschi and his daughter Artemisia, Sir Peter Lely (a naturalised English subject from 1662), and Sir Godfrey Kneller (a naturalised English subject by the time of his 1691 knighthood).^[61]

The 17th century saw a number of significant English painters of full-size portraits, most notably William Dobson 1611 (bapt. 1611–bur. 1646); others include Cornelius Johnson (bapt. 1593–bur. 1661)^[62] and Robert Walker (1599–1658). Samuel Cooper (1609–1672) was an accomplished miniaturist in Hilliard's tradition, as was his brother Alexander Cooper (1609–1660), and their uncle, John Hoskins (1589/1590–1664). Other notable portraitists of the period include: Thomas Flatman (1635–1688), Richard Gibson (1615–1690), the dissolute John Greenhill (c. 1644–1676), John Riley (1646–1691), and John Michael Wright (1617–1694). Francis Barlow (c. 1626–1704) is known as "the father of British sporting painting";^[63] he was England's first wildlife painter, beginning a tradition that reached a high-point a century later, in the work of George Stubbs (1724–1806).^[64] English women began painting professionally in the 17th century; notable examples include Joan Carlile (c. 1606–79), and Mary Beale (née Cradock; 1633–1699).^[65]

In the first half of the 17th century the English nobility became important collectors of European art, led by King Charles I and Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel.^[66] A tradition of English marine art was also established.^[67] The introduction of Baroque architecture in England marked the beginning of a tradition in English Baroque art.^[68] By the end of the 17th century, the Grand Tour – a trip of Europe giving exposure to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance – was de rigueur for wealthy young Englishmen.^[69]

• 
  Hammerbeam roof and glass windows of Hampton Court Palace's Great Hall.^[70]
• 
  Oxford's New College Chapel Gothic reredos.^[71]
• 
  The Gothic ceiling and glass windows of the Henry VII Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey.^[72]
• 
  The Field of the Cloth of Gold; c. 1545^[73]
• 
  The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover; c. 1520^[74]
• 
  Frontispiece of Christopher Saxton's Atlas of the Counties of England and Wales; c. 1579.^[75]
• 
  Nicholas Hilliard's portrait of Elizabeth I; c. 1575.^[76]
• 
  John Bettes the Younger's portrait of Elizabeth I; c. 1585.^[77]
• 
  Isaac Oliver's portrait of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales; c. 1612.^[78]
• 
  Robert Peake the Elder's portrait of Edward Herbert Baron Herbert of Cherbury; c. 1604.^[79]
• 
  William Larkin's portrait of Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, c. 1615.^[80]
• 
  John Michael Wright's portrait of Charles II; c. 1676.^[81]
• 
  Robert Streate's fresco in Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford; c. 1664–1669.^[82]
• 
  St Paul's Cathedral's baroque dome, painted by Sir James Thornhill.^[83]

In the 18th century, English painting's distinct style and tradition continued to concentrate frequently on portraiture, but interest in landscapes increased, especially with the arrival of the English landscape garden. Marine art also continued to develop.^[85] A new focus was placed on history painting, which was regarded as the highest of the hierarchy of genres,^[86] and is exemplified in the extraordinary work of Sir James Thornhill (1675/1676–1734). History painter Robert Streater (1621–1679) was highly thought of in his time.^[87] Increased prosperity at the time led to a greatly increased production of both fine art and the decorative arts, the latter often being exported.^[88] The Georgian, Regency, and Victorian eras are regarded as the pinnacle 'golden age' of English art, characterised by a vibrant flourishing across various artistic expressions.^[89]

There was a significant enhancement in the training of English artists, driven by both private and governmental efforts. This period saw the establishment of new training schools, which proliferated throughout the 19th century.^[90] The advent of public exhibitions and the subsequent establishment of museums made art more accessible to the general populace. During the 19th century, religious art, which had been largely absent since the Reformation, regained popularity in public displays. Additionally, movements like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood emerged which established academic art.^[91][92]

Sir James Thornhill (1675/76–1734) who was the first and last significant English painter of huge Baroque allegorical decorative schemes, and the first native painter to be knighted. His best-known work is at Greenwich Hospital, Blenheim Palace and the cupola of Saint Paul's Cathedral, London.^[94][95] William Hogarth (1697–1764) reflected the burgeoning English middle-class temperament — English in habits, disposition, and temperament, as well as by birth. His satirical works, full of black humour, point out to contemporary society the deformities, weaknesses and vices of London life, pioneered Western sequential art, and political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".^[96] Following Hogarth, political cartoons developed in England in the late 18th century under the direction of James Gillray. Regarded as one of the two most influential cartoonists (the other is Hogarth), Gillray has been referred to as the father of the political cartoon, with his satirical work calling the King (George III), prime ministers and generals to account.^[97]

Hogarth's influence can be found in the distinctively English satirical tradition continued by James Gillray (1756–1815), and George Cruikshank (1792–1878).^[98] One of the genres in which Hogarth worked was the conversation piece, a form in which certain of his contemporaries also excelled: Joseph Highmore (1692–1780), Francis Hayman (1708–1776), and Arthur Devis (1712–1787).^[99]

Portraits were in England, as in Europe, the easiest and most profitable way for an artist to make a living, and the English tradition continued to show the relaxed elegance of the portrait-style traceable to Van Dyck. The leading portraitists are: Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788); Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), founder of the Royal Academy of Arts; George Romney (1734–1802); Lemuel "Francis" Abbott (1760/61–1802); Richard Westall (1765–1836); Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830); and Thomas Phillips (1770–1845). Also of note are Jonathan Richardson (1667–1745) and his pupil (and defiant son-in-law) Thomas Hudson (1701–1779). Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797) was well known for his candlelight pictures; George Stubbs (1724–1806) and, later, Edwin Henry Landseer (1802–1873) for their animal paintings. By the end of the century, the English swagger portrait was much admired abroad.^[100]

English art from about 1750–1790 — today referred to as the "classical age" of English painting — was dominated by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), George Stubbs (1724–1806), Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) and Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797). The period saw continued rising prosperity for artists: "By the 1780s English painters were among the wealthiest men in the country, their names familiar to newspaper readers, their quarrels and cabals the talk of the town, their subjects known to everyone from the displays in the print-shop windows", according to Gerald Reitlinger.^[101]

In the popular imagination English landscape painting from the 18th century onwards typifies English art, inspired largely from the love of the pastoral and mirroring as it does the development of larger country houses set in a pastoral rural landscape.^[102] Two English Romantics are largely responsible for raising the status of landscape painting worldwide: John Constable (1776–1837) and J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), who is credited with elevating landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.^[103][104] Other notable 18th and 19th century landscape painters include: George Arnald (1763–1841); John Linnell (1792–1882), a rival to Constable in his time; George Morland (1763–1804), who developed on Francis Barlow's tradition of animal and rustic painting; Samuel Palmer (1805–1881); Paul Sandby (1731–1809), who is recognised as the father of English watercolour painting;^[105] and subsequent watercolourists John Robert Cozens (1752–1797), Turner's friend Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), and Thomas Heaphy (1775–1835).^[106]

The Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce had been founded in 1754, principally to provide a location for exhibitions. In 1761 Reynolds was a leader in founding the rival Society of Artists of Great Britain, where the artists had more control. This continued until 1791, despite the founding of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, which immediately became both the most important exhibiting organisation and the most important school in London. Reynolds was its first President, holding the office until his death in 1792. His published Discourses, first delivered to the students, were regarded as the first major writing on art in English, and set out the aspiration for a style to match the classical grandeur of classical sculpture and High Renaissance painting.^[107]

William Blake (1757–1827) produced a diverse and visionary body of work defying straightforward classification; critic Jonathan Jones regards him as "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".^[109] Blake's artist friends included neoclassicist John Flaxman (1755–1826), and Thomas Stothard (1755–1834) with whom Blake quarrelled. The early 19th century saw the emergence of the Norwich school of landscape painters, the first provincial art movement outside of London. Its prominent members were "founding father" John Crome (1768–1821), John Sell Cotman (1782–1842), James Stark (1794–1859), and Joseph Stannard (1797–1830).^[110]

Subjects from literature were also popular, pioneered by Francis Hayman, one of the first to paint scenes from Shakespeare, and Joseph Highmore, with a series illustrating the novel Pamela. At the end of the period the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery was an ambitious project for paintings, and prints after them, illustrating "the Bard", as he had now become, while exposing the limitations of contemporary English history painting.^[111] Joseph Wright of Derby was mainly a portrait painter who also was one of the first artists to depict the Industrial Revolution, as well as developing a cross between the conversation piece and history painting in works like An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) and A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery (c. 1766), which like many of his works are lit only by candlelight, giving a strong chiaroscuro effect.^[112]

This period marked one of the high points in English decorative arts. Around the mid-century many porcelain factories opened and by the end of the period English porcelain services were being commissioned by foreign royalty and manufacturers were especially adept at pursuing the rapidly expanding international middle-class market, developing bone china and transfer-printed wares as well as hand-painted true porcelain.^[113] The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood movement, established in the 1840s, dominated English art in the second half of the 19th century. Its members — William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882), John Everett Millais (1828–1896) and others — concentrated on religious, literary, and genre works executed in a colourful and minutely detailed, almost photographic style.^[114] Ford Madox Brown (1821–1893) shared the Pre-Raphaelites' principles.^[115]

During the late Victorian era academic paintings, some enormously large, of Lord Leighton were enormously popular, both often featuring lightly clad beauties in exotic or classical settings, while the allegorical works of G. F. Watts matched the Victorian sense of high purpose.^[116] The leading English art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century; from the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites, who were influenced by his ideas.^[117] William Morris (1834–1896), founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement, emphasised the value of traditional craft skills which seemed to be in decline in the mass industrial age. His designs, like the work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters with whom he was associated, referred frequently to medieval motifs.^[118] English narrative painter William Powell Frith (1819–1909) has been described as the "greatest British painter of the social scene since Hogarth",^[119] and painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts (1817–1904) became famous for his symbolist work.

The gallant spirit of 19th century English military art helped shape Victorian England's self-image.^[120] Notable English military artists include: John Edward Chapman 'Chester' Mathews (1843–1927);^[121] Lady Butler (1846–1933);^[122] Frank Dadd (1851–1929); Edward Matthew Hale (1852–1924); Charles Edwin Fripp (1854–1906);^[123] Richard Caton Woodville, Jr. (1856–1927);^[124] Harry Payne (1858–1927);^[125] George Delville Rowlandson (1861–1930); and Edgar Alfred Holloway (1870–1941).^[126] Thomas Davidson (1842–1919), who specialised in historical naval scenes,^[127] incorporated remarkable reproductions of Nelson-related works by Arnald, Westall and Abbott in England's Pride and Glory (1894).^[128]

The middle of the 19th century saw The Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair, which showcased the greatest innovations of the century. At its centre was the Crystal Palace, a modular glass and iron structure – the first of its kind. It later came to be presented as the prototype of Modern architecture. The emergence of photography, showcased at the Great Exhibition, resulted in significant changes in Victorian art with Queen Victoria being the first British monarch to be photographed. English photographer and inventor Thomas Wedgwood is believed to have been the first person to have thought of creating permanent pictures by capturing camera images on material coated with a light-sensitive chemical. Roger Fenton and Philip Henry Delamotte helped popularise the new way of recording events, the first by his Crimean War pictures, the second by his record of the disassembly and reconstruction of The Crystal Palace in London. Other mid-nineteenth-century English photographers established the medium as a more precise means than engraving or lithography of making a record of landscapes and architecture.^[129]

In general, various styles of painting were popular during the Victorian period, particularly Classicism, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Impressionism, and Post-impressionism.^[130] The growing popularity of romantic love spilled over into literature and fine arts.^[131] To the end of the 19th century, the art of Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898) contributed to the development of Art Nouveau, and suggested, among other things, an interest in the visual art of Japan.^[132]

• 
  Arthur Devis's "conversation piece" portrait of the East India Company's Robert James and family; 1751.^[133]
• 
  Arthur Devis's Portrait of Sir George and Lady Strickland in the Park Before Boynton Hall, 1751.^[134]
• 
  Francis Hayman's Robert Clive and Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey; 1757.^[135]
• 
  George Stubbs's Whistlejacket; c. 1762.^[136]
• 
  Joseph Wright of Derby's An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump; 1768.^[137]
• 
  Samuel Scott's Ludlow Castle with Dinham Weir, from the South-West; c. 1765-1769.^[138]
• 
  George Romney's Emma Hart in a Straw Hat; 1785.^[139]
• 
  Phillips's Lord Byron in Albanian Dress; c. 1835.^[140]
• 
  Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Jane, Countess of Harrington, c.1778.^[141]
• 
  King George IV depicted wearing coronation robes and four collars of chivalric orders: the Golden Fleece, Royal Guelphic, Bath and Garter by Thomas Lawrence; c.1821.^[142]
• 
  William Blake's Newton; c. 1795-1805.^[143]
• 
  John Constable's The Hay Wain; c.1821.^[144]
• 
  George Arnald's The Destruction of 'L'Orient' at the Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798; 1825–27.^[145]
• 
  Turner's The Fighting Temeraire; 1839.^[146]
• 
  Millais's Ophelia; 1851–1852.^[147]
• 
  Henry John Boddington's Norfolk Hamlet; c. 1840.^[148]
• 
  William Holman Hunt's The Hireling Shepherd; c 1851.^[149]
• 
  Edwin Landseer's Monarch of the Glen; c. 1851.^[150]
• 
  Dante Rossetti's Prosperpine; c. 1874.^[151]
• 
  Titania Sleeping in the Moonlight Protected by Her Fairies by John Simmons, inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.^[152]
• 
  Holman Hunt's Our English Coasts; 1852.^[153]
• 
  George William Mote's The garden of England, c.1865.^[154]
• 
  Lord Leighton's Cimabue's Madonna Carried in Procession; c. 1855.^[155]
• 
  Lawrence Alma-Tadema's The Roses of Heliogabalus; c. 1888.^[156]
• 
  Ford Madox Brown's The Last of England; 1852–1855.^[157]
• 
  William Powell Frith's portrait of Dickens; 1859.^[158]
• 
  Thomas Davidson's England's Pride and Glory; 1894.^[159]
• 
  Edmund Leighton's God Speed!; c. 1900.^[160]

Impressionism found a focus in the New English Art Club, founded in 1886.^[162] Notable members included Walter Sickert (1860–1942) and Philip Wilson Steer (1860–1942), two English painters with coterminous lives who became influential in the 20th century. Sickert went on to the post-impressionist Camden Town Group, active 1911–1913, and was prominent in the transition to Modernism.^[163] Steer's sea and landscape paintings made him a leading Impressionist, but later work displays a more traditional English style, influenced by both Constable and Turner.^[164]

Victorian art persisted until the onset of World War I in 1914, during which the Royal Academy became progressively rigid. In 1924, the distinctly late Victorian artist Frank Dicksee was appointed as president.^[165] Paul Nash (1889–1946) played a key role in the development of Modernism in English art. He was among the most important landscape artists of the first half of the twentieth century, and the artworks he produced during World War I are among the most iconic images of the conflict.^[166] Nash attended the Slade School of Art, where the remarkable generation of artists who studied under the influential Henry Tonks (1862–1937) included, too, Harold Gilman (1876–1919), Spencer Gore (1878–1914), David Bomberg (1890–1957), Stanley Spencer (1891–1959), Mark Gertler (1891–1939), and Roger Hilton (1911–1975).

Modernism's most controversial English talent was writer and painter Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957). He co-founded the Vorticist movement in art, and after becoming better known for his writing than his painting in the 1920s and early 1930s he returned to more concentrated work on visual art, with paintings from the 1930s and 1940s constituting some of his best-known work. Walter Sickert called Wyndham Lewis: "the greatest portraitist of this or any other time".^[167] Modernist sculpture was exemplified by English artists Henry Moore (1898–1986), well known for his carved marble and larger-scale abstract cast bronze sculptures, and Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975), who was a leading figure in the colony of artists who resided in St Ives, Cornwall during World War II.^[168]

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Lancastrian L. S. Lowry (1887–1976) became famous for his scenes of life in the industrial districts of North West England in the mid-20th century. He developed a distinctive style of painting and is best known for his urban landscapes peopled with human figures often referred to as "matchstick men".^[169] Notable English artists of the mid-20th century and after include: Graham Sutherland (1903–1980); Carel Weight (1908–1997); Ruskin Spear (1911–1990); pop art pioneers Richard Hamilton (1922–2011), Peter Blake (b. 1932), and David Hockney (b. 1937); and op art exemplar Bridget Riley (b. 1931). Sir Jacob Epstein was a pioneer of modern sculpture.^[170]

In the late 1960s, graphic designer Storm Thorgerson co-founded the graphic art group Hipgnosis, who have designed many iconic single and album covers for rock bands. His works were notable for their surreal elements, with perhaps the most famous being the cover for Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. Designed and photographed by Brian Duffy, the Aladdin Sane album cover features a lightning bolt across his face which is regarded as one of the most iconic images of David Bowie.^[171]

Post-modern contemporary English art, especially that associated with the Young British Artists. Established in 1984, the Turner Prize, organized by the Tate, has emerged as a prominent platform for contemporary art, showcasing numerous YBA figures such as Damien Hirst, Rachel Whiteread, and Tracey Emin. These artists gained significant attention following the Freeze exhibition in 1988, supported by Charles Saatchi, and achieved global acclaim for their conceptual art. The Tate gallery and later the Royal Academy played crucial roles in promoting their work, while Saatchi's extensive patronage, along with that of influential gallerist Jay Jopling, sparked considerable debate within the art community.^[172]

While the Turner Prize establishment satisfied itself with weak conceptual homages to authentic iconoclasts,^[173] it spurned original talents such as Beryl Cook (1926–2008).^[174] The award ceremony has since 2000 attracted annual demonstrations by the "Stuckists", a group calling for a return to figurative art and aesthetic authenticity.^[175]

Since the mid-1990s, England, mostly in London, has been at the centre of the international art world.^[176] Other cities in England have emerged as significant centers for the arts.^[177][178] In 2004, the Walker Art Gallery staged The Stuckists Punk Victorian, the first national museum exhibition of the Stuckist art movement.^[179] The Federation of British Artists hosts shows of traditional figurative painting.^[180] Jack Vettriano and Beryl Cook have widespread popularity, but not establishment recognition.^{[181][182][183]} Banksy made a reputation with street graffiti and is now a highly valued mainstream artist.^[184]

Antony Gormley produces sculptures, mostly in metal and based on the human figure, which include the 20 metres (66 ft) high Angel of the North near Gateshead, one of the first of a number of very large public sculptures produced in the 2000s, Another Place, and Event Horizon.^[185][186] The sculptor Anish Kapoor has public works around the world, including Cloud Gate in Chicago and Sky Mirror in various locations; like much of his work these use curved mirror-like steel surfaces. The environmental sculptures of English land artist Andy Goldsworthy have been created in many locations around the world. Using natural found materials they are often very ephemeral, and are recorded in photographs of which several collections in book form have been published.^[187] Grayson Perry works in various media, including ceramics. Whilst leading printmakers include Norman Ackroyd, Elizabeth Blackadder, Barbara Rae and Richard Spare.

A highly visible and much praised work of public art, seen for a brief period in 2014 was Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, a collaboration between artist Paul Cummins (b. 1977) and theatre designer Tom Piper. The installation at the Tower of London between July and November 2014 commemorated the centenary of the outbreak of World War I; it consisted of 888,246 ceramic red poppies, each intended to represent one British or Colonial serviceman killed in the War.^[188]

• 
  Henry Scott's August Blue; c. 1894.^[189]
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  Philip Wilson Steer's Girls Running, Walberswick Pier; c.1888–94.^[190]
• 
  Harold Gilman's Leeds market; c. 1913.^[191]
• 
  Paul Nash's We are Making a New World; 1918.^[192]
• 
  Walter Sickert's Brighton Pierrots; 1915.^[193]
• 
  Mark Gertler's Merry-Go-Round; 1916.^[194]
• 
  David Bomberg's Sappers at Work: Canadian Tunnelling Company, R14, St Eloi; 1918.^[195]
• 
  Wyndham Lewis's A Battery Shelled; 1919.^[196]
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  Edward Wadsworth's The Cattewater, Plymouth Sound; 1923.^[197]
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  Ruskin Spear's Patients waiting Outside a First Aid Post in a Factory; 1942.^[198]
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  Carel Weight's Recruit's Progress; 1942.^[199]
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  Stanley Spencer's Shipbuilding on the Clyde: The Furnaces; 1946.^[200]
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  L. S. Lowry's Going to Work; 1959.^[201]
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  Graham Sutherland's Christ tapestry in the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral; 1962.^[202]
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  Barbara Hepworth's Four-Square (Walk Through); 1966.^[203][204]
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  Henry Moore's, Large Reclining Figure, 1984
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  Antony Gormley's Angel of the North near Gateshead; 1998.^[205]
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  ArcelorMittal Orbit at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Britain's largest piece of public art.^[206]
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  Banksy's Grin Reaper
• 
  Statue of Elizabeth II on west facade of York Minster by Richard Bossons. Unveiled by King Charles III on 9 November 2022.^[207]

It is considered that English landscape painting typifies English art, inspired largely from the love of the pastoral arising from the poetry of Edmund Spenser, and mirroring as it does the development of larger country houses set in a pastoral rural landscape. Although English art lies equally in the tendency toward melancholia, often expressed as a love of the continuity of the past with the present, and a love of ghosts, and marvelous or gothic ruins.^[208]

As the population of England grew during the Industrial Revolution, a concern for privacy and smaller gardens becomes more notable in English art. There was also a new found appreciation of the open landscapes of romantic wilderness, and a concern for the ancient folk arts.^[209] William Morris is particularly associated with this latter trend, as were the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Another important influence, from about 1890 until 1926, was the growing knowledge about the visual art of Japan.^[210]

Being a coastal and sea-faring island nation, English art has often portrayed the coast and the sea. Being a nation of four distinct seasons, and changeable weather, weather effects have often been portrayed in English art.^[211] Weather and light effects on the English landscape have been a pre-eminent aspect of modern English landscape photography.^[212]

Major schools of art in England include the six-school University of the Arts London, which includes the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and Chelsea College of Art and Design; Goldsmiths, University of London; the Slade School of Fine Art (part of University College London); the Royal College of Art; and The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art (part of the University of Oxford). The Courtauld Institute of Art is a leading centre for the teaching of the history of art.

Outside of London art schools include Arts University Bournemouth, Coventry School of Art and Design, University for the Creative Arts, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Hereford College of Arts, Leeds College of Art, Liverpool School of Art (part of Liverpool John Moores University), Loughborough University School of Art and Design, Manchester School of Art (part of Manchester Metropolitan University), Norwich University of the Arts, The Northern School of Art and Plymouth College of Art and Design. Most specialist institutions can trace their histories back to the 19th century or beyond, originating usually from government initiatives.

• British Museum
• Delaware Art Museum
• National Gallery
• National Portrait Gallery
• Royal Academy of Arts
• Tate Britain
• Victoria and Albert Museum
• The Fitzwilliam Museum
• Somerset House
• Walker Art Gallery
• Yale Center for British Art
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art

• David Bindman (ed.), The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of British Art (London, 1985)
• Joseph Burke, English Art, 1714–1800 (Oxford, 1976)
• William Gaunt, A Concise History of English Painting (London, 1978)
• William Gaunt, The Great Century of British Painting: Hogarth to Turner (London, 1971)
• Nikolaus Pevsner, The Englishness of English Art (London, 1956)
• William Vaughan, British Painting: The Golden Age from Hogarth to Turner (London, 1999)
• Ellis Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, 1530–1790, 4th Edn, 1978, Penguin Books (now Yale History of Art series)