Take a walk through 500 years of British art....
The other day I spent a rewarding morning with a friend walking halfway through Tate Britain’s new ‘hang’ – a rearrangement and refresh of its collection of British art, providing a circuit from 1545 to the present day. We only made it halfway through before we had to head out to other commitments, but we made a firm promise to do the rest of the circuit as soon as we can.
The walk takes you around the perimeter of the main gallery, and the works are hung in chronological order, as opposed to by theme or movement – thus creating, as the Tate’s notes state, an ‘open conversation’ between the works, and indeed between the viewer and the viewed. The end result allows you to form your own conclusions about the relationships between the works, and to think about why some works have become so well loved and others so unknown. Skill, certainly, marks some out from others; the collection includes the great, the good, the bad and the indifferent. Seeing paintings together that may have nothing in common but the year in which they were made gives on the one hand a strong sense of what was fashionable in the way of painting styles and subjects and, on the other hand, a unique insight into the way artists responded to their contemporaries – or sometimes seemed to ignore them.
The other day I spent a rewarding morning with a friend walking halfway through Tate Britain’s new ‘hang’ – a rearrangement and refresh of its collection of British art, providing a circuit from 1545 to the present day. We only made it halfway through before we had to head out to other commitments, but we made a firm promise to do the rest of the circuit as soon as we can.
The walk takes you around the perimeter of the main gallery, and the works are hung in chronological order, as opposed to by theme or movement – thus creating, as the Tate’s notes state, an ‘open conversation’ between the works, and indeed between the viewer and the viewed. The end result allows you to form your own conclusions about the relationships between the works, and to think about why some works have become so well loved and others so unknown. Skill, certainly, marks some out from others; the collection includes the great, the good, the bad and the indifferent. Seeing paintings together that may have nothing in common but the year in which they were made gives on the one hand a strong sense of what was fashionable in the way of painting styles and subjects and, on the other hand, a unique insight into the way artists responded to their contemporaries – or sometimes seemed to ignore them.
Canaletto, London: The Old Horse Guards from St James's Park, 1749 (Tate Britain)
One painting we both loved seeing again was Canaletto’s London: the Old Horse Guards from St James’s Park. He painted it in 1749, three years after coming to London, and it's one of about two dozen views of the city he painted in the years he was here. This one shows the old Horse Guards building just a few years before it was replaced by the Horse Guards building that exists today. The painting is a wonderfully detailed portrayal of eighteenth-century London life - or at least the slice of London life that had the leisure to wander on a sunny day.
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Interestingly, the people in the painting didn’t have the choice of taking a walk through 500 years of British art on a sunny afternoon. At the time Canaletto painted this scene, there were no art museums in London. There were museums of curiosities and museums of armour, but until the British Museum opened in 1759 with the personal collection of Sir Hans Sloane, there was no museum in the city showing artworks. Around that time, in the mid-eighteenth century, the painter and printmaker William Hogarth provided a unique opportunity for artists to exhibit in public for the first time. Hogarth was a governor of the Foundling Hospital (now the Foundling Museum), and he persuaded artists to donate paintings and sculptures to the hospital to attract wealthy donors. It was a win-win: donations for the hospital and wider reputation for the artists.
Hogarth’s great idea led to the formation of the Society of Artists and, indirectly, to the establishment of the great museums of the city over the next 150 years. The Royal Academy was founded in 1768 and ran its first exhibition the following year. The National Gallery opened in its current site in Trafalgar Square in 1838, the Victoria and Albert Museum opened in its South Kensington site in 1857, and Tate Britain opened in Pimlico 1897. It was a golden age of acquiring art for the nation, and it illustrates how the public’s access to art has changed so dramatically from the time of Canaletto’s Horse Guards painting.
Tate Britain: BP Walk through British Art
Hogarth’s great idea led to the formation of the Society of Artists and, indirectly, to the establishment of the great museums of the city over the next 150 years. The Royal Academy was founded in 1768 and ran its first exhibition the following year. The National Gallery opened in its current site in Trafalgar Square in 1838, the Victoria and Albert Museum opened in its South Kensington site in 1857, and Tate Britain opened in Pimlico 1897. It was a golden age of acquiring art for the nation, and it illustrates how the public’s access to art has changed so dramatically from the time of Canaletto’s Horse Guards painting.
Tate Britain: BP Walk through British Art
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