The Englishness of English art : an expanded and annotated version of the Reith lectures broadcast in October and November 1955
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The Englishness of English art : an expanded and annotated version of the Reith lectures broadcast in October and November 1955
（Penguin art and architecture）
Penguin, 1993, c1956
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Note
Reprint of the 1956 ed. published by Architectural Press, London
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In this essay, the author analyzes the national characteristics of English art. He shows that in order to understand the cultural geography of a nation it is necessary to examine its polarities, since it is only by looking at the seeming contradictions that we can hope to discover what is specifically English in each distinctive style. The author considers the work of four painters, Hogarth, Reynolds, Blake and Constable; that most English of architectural styles, the Perpendicular; and, finally, the picturesque, exemplified by the landscape garden. The geography of art is not a science, and many of the qualities to be seen in English art are impermanent and ambivalent. Yet, the author concludes, as reason and tolerance have gained precedence in the English character, we have "lost that fanaticism or at least that intensity which alone can bring forth the very greatest in art".
Table of Contents
- The geography of art
- Hogarth and observed life
- Reynolds and detachment
- perpendicular England
- Blake and the flaming line
- Constable and the pursuit of nature
- picturesque England
- conclusion.
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