National Schools of Painting

The history of painting since the 17th century may best be studied in the Britannica in the order in which “recent schools” are treated (Vol. 20, pp. 497–518), and this plan will be followed here in a brief outline, giving only a few out of many articles for each country.

British

British art in the 17th and 18th centuries is dependent largely on foreign and particularly Flemish influences—Van Dyck in especial. See Rossetti’s articles on Lely and Kneller, who, like Holbein and Van Dyck, were importations, but, unlike them, were pretty thoroughly Anglicized. For the first purely English painter see Austin Dobson’s article Hogarth (Vol. 13, p. 566). For “the most prominent figure in the English school of painting” whose Discourses largely affected English notions of aesthetics, see Sir Joshua Reynolds; also the article on his rival George Romney. And read Rossetti’s article Gainsborough; and those on the portrait painters Raeburn and Sir Thomas Lawrence. On the Norwich school of landscapists see the articles Crome, Cotman and George Vincent. For foreign influences on landscape painting see Richard Wilson (Vol. 28, p. 695) for French influence, and John Constable (Vol. 6, p. 982), by C. J. Holmes, author of Constable and His Influence on Landscape Painting, for German. With the article on the greatest of English landscapists J. M. W. Turner (Vol. 27, p. 474), by Sir George Reid, the student should read Frederic Harrison’s article on John Ruskin, himself an exquisite draughtsman, although unable to compose a picture, whose championship of Turner and general theories of art so strongly influenced British painting. See also the articles on the subject painter Thomas Stothard and the landscapist Girtin; and on the genre painters, Sir David Wilkie, by J. Miller Gray, late curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Mulready, William Collins, and Frith. See the article William Blake, by J. W. Comyns-Carr, author of Essays on Art, for an appreciation of that remarkable genius, who in his combination of painting and poetry may be reckoned a forerunner of the Pre-Raphaelites. On the P. R. Brotherhood see the articles: D. G. Rossetti, by F. G. Stephens, former art-critic to the Athenaeum and, for Rossetti’s literary work, Theodore Watts-Dunton; Sir J. E. Millais and W. Holman Hunt, by Cosmo Monkhouse, the poet and critic; and Ford Madox Brown, by W. M. Rossetti, himself a member of the Brotherhood—see the article on Rossetti. Of much the same school were several later men. See, for instance, the articles: Lord Leighton, by Cosmo Monkhouse; William Morris, by Arthur Waugh; Burne-Jones, by Lawrence Binyon, poet and author of monographs on Blake, Crome, etc.; George Frederick Watts, by Malcolm Bell, biographer of Burne-Jones; Walter Crane. On the “Newlyn” school, see the article Newlyn; on the etchers, Whistler, by Frederick Wedmore, author of Whistler’s Etchings, and William Strang and Sir F. S. Haden, by Sir Charles Holroyd, artist and critic; on figure painters, Sir John Gilbert, Albert Moore, John Pettie, G. H. Boughton, Alma-Tadema, Sir E. J. Poynter and Sir W. B. Richmond; for painters of sentiment, Marcus Stone, Sir Luke Fildes and Sir Hubert von Herkomer; among portrait painters, J. J. Shannon, and C. W. Furse; the decorator Frank Brangwyn; the realistic landscapists, H. W. B. Davis, David Murray, Sir E. A. Waterlow, Vicat Cole; the more imaginative and romantic painters of landscape, Alfred W. Hunt, Cecil Gordon Lawson, John Linnell, G. H. Mason, Frederick Walker, Sir Alfred East, J. Buxton Knight, George Clausen; the “subjective landscapist” B. W. Leader; the marine painters Henry Moore, C. Napier Hemy, James Clarke Hook; the animal-painters Breton, Riviere, J. M. Swan, and, for the earlier period, Landseer; the Scottish artists Orchardson, by Sir Walter Armstrong, director of National Gallery of Ireland; John Pettie, Thomas Faed, David Murray, Arthur Melville, John Lavery, Robert Brough, Sir James Guthrie, and Sir George Reid, of whom we have already spoken as a contributor to the Britannica; and the water colorists Sir John Gilbert, by F. G. Stephens, former art critic of the Athenaeum, Henry Moore, Albert Moore, George Clausen, E. J. Gregory, Birket Foster, Haag, Kate Greenaway, by M. H. Spielmann, biographer of Kate Greenaway. On English illustrators, besides those already named, Hogarth and Blake notably, see the articles Thomas Bewick, Bartolozzi, Flaxman, by Sir Sidney Colvin, Cattermole, Samuel Prout, James Ward, Gillray, Bunbury, Rowlandson, Cruikshank, John Leech, Richard Doyle, Tenniel, Sir John Gilbert, Aubrey Beardsley, by E. F. Strange, Thomas Creswick, Du Maurier, C. S. Keene, Frederick Walker, G. J. Pinwell, R. Caldecott, Harry Furniss, Sir F. C. Gould, E. Linley Sambourne, Phil May, Leonard Raven-Hill.

French

On French painting of the 17th century read: on landscape, Poussin, and Claude of Lorraine (Vol. 6, p. 463), by W. M. Rossetti; the historical and religious painters Le Brun and Le Sueur; and the portraitist Philippe de Champaigne. For the 18th century: the articles Watteau and Fragonard, by P. G. Konody; François Boucher, Lancret, Vernet the eldest, Rigaud, Chardin, and Greuze, by Lady Dilke, author of French Painters of the 18th Century.

In the 19th century came a classical reaction: see the article on its leader Jacques Louis David and his pupils and imitators J. B. Regnault, Girodet, Baron Guérin, Prud’hon; then a mediate movement, on which see Ingres, by Lady Dilke, and Gros; and then a Romantic revolt—see Delacroix, Géricault, Isabey. Other important names are Ziem, Meissonier and Rose Bonheur, both by Henri Frantz of the Gazette des Beaux Arts, Cabanel, Baudry, Gérôme, Bouguereau, Benjamin Constant, Cormon, Bonnat and Henner. On the Barbizon school, see the articles Barbizon, Theodore Rousseau, Daubigny, Corot, and Diaz, by D. Croal Thomson, author of The Barbizon School, J. F. Millet, by Lady Dilke; Dupré, Français and Harpignies. Ranking with Corot and Millet in influence is Courbet; see the article on Courbet, by Henri Frantz of the Paris Gazette des Beaux Arts, and on Courbet’s followers, Legros, Fantin-Latour, Ribot, by Frederick Wedmore, Carolus-Duran. Contrasted with these nature-lovers are the more mystic Moreau, Ricard, Delaunay, Fromentin and Cazin.

The later names we may classify: the decorative painter—Puvis de Chavannes, by Henri Frantz; the impressionists—see the article Impressionism (Vol. 14, pp. 343–346), by D. S. MacColl, keeper of the Tate Gallery, and author of Nineteenth Century Art, and in the article Painting the discussion on pp. 473–474 of Vol. 20—Manet, by Henri Frantz, Monet, Degas, Renoir; the plein-airists Jules Breton, Bastien-Lepage, by Henri Frantz; Roll, Gervex; the symbolist Gustave Moreau; the military painters Alphonse de Neuville and Detaille; and the “neo-evangelist” Cazin.

Belgium and Holland

The art of Belgium and Holland in the 19th century is to be studied in Prof. Muther’s sections on these two countries (pp. 506–509) in the article Painting, and in such separate articles as Leys, Alfred Stevens (to be distinguished from the English sculptor), Braekeleer, Willems, Clays, Portaels, Wauters, Constantin Meunier, Verlat, the de Vriendts, Khnopff, already mentioned as a critic and a contributor to the Britannica,—all these are Belgians; and, in Holland, Israëls, Maris, Mauve.