British Painting: The Golden Age

World of Art

by William Vaughan

From Hogarth's first works around 1730 to the death of Turner in 1851, Britain's status as an artistic nation was dramatically transformed. Hogarth himself brought modern life into painting and treated it with high moral seriousness disguised as satire. Ramsay, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Lawrence revolutionized portraiture, introducing a new authority and sensibility. The unconventional genius of Blake gave form to a unique mystic vision, while Constable explored nature in a new manner, encouraging developments that were to lead to Impressionism. Finally, Turner took painting into a realm of sublime grandeur, expressing the age of Romanticism as vividly as Byron, Shelley, and Keats were doing in poetry. William Vaughan analyzes the class structure and political background that made British art so distinctive. Using up-to-date research and critical theory, he shows us the colorful world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when British art was richer and more influential than at any time before or since.

Genres: Art, Art History, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1999

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of painting (with a few detours into prints and satirical cartoons along the way) in England from the early eighteenth century to the early nineteenth. Three artist stand out as sufficiently important as to merit all or most of a chapter to themselves, marking significant shifts in artistic practice and aesthetic values: Hogarth, Blake, and Turner.

[Mike Neubeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a really fine introduction to the subject. Pleasantly conversational and informative.

[Commander Law · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this on Normand Subsea when out at Corrib Field for Vermilion Feb 2025.

I enjoyed this, a bit of art history without too much of the usual indecipherable bollocks which you can get with some of these types. Almost a summary concentrating on a handful of prominent artists, they're back ground and Britian's position, fears, changes and hopes

[Gilraen Pendragon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a real good book that makes an easy, fiction-like read, yet gives lots of in depth knowledge and makes you think. Plus a lot of good quality pictures with great explanations. Wholeheartedly recommend!

[Chris Bertagnole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read and enjoyed Vaughn before, and this review carries that opinion forward.