UK art
Discover my personal journey through British Art and how it has influenced my work
In this article titled Art Prints UK I present in no particular order some of my prints along with other well-known works of art: paintings, prints, poems and music that British artists have created.
This exercise illustrates the references, influences, echoes that are present in my art that I have absorbed to create my own UK culture.
As it happens, I have gathered my own personal UK culture not just through museums’ shows and art books but also in more intimate ways – for example through trips to famous places that have been painted by other artists such as: The coast and clouds of Brighton painted by Constable or Samuel Palmer, the Sussex countryside portrayed as exquisite Japanese style woodcuts by Eric Slater or the banks of the Meon River in Hampshire painted abstractly by Ivon Hitchens.
I also enjoy art as it has been historically hung in country houses like Petworth or Chatsworth. Art surrounds us everywhere and with the mindset of an artist, when I am in front of a work of art, my judgement is not just in the appreciation of the style, technique and form but also with an inquisitive mind I question the artists’ circumstances. By answering these questions, I create a map of ideas that somehow intentionally or unintentionally influence my work as these experiences intrinsically become part of who I am.
Setting the UK art boundaries
The definition of Art of the United Kingdom refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with the United Kingdom since the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and encompasses English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish art, and forms part of Western art history.
UK artist
In 2020 I obtained British citizenship. The process included passing an English language test and the Life in the UK test which provides you with an insight into many aspects of the UK such as law, history, art, and geography etc but what I find more important is that this knowledge lays out the values of Western culture. The discussion to follow this paragraph questions the definition of an UK artist and the relevance and importance of this fact. These questions might answer themselves after the presentation that follows of UK art and my own work.
UK art by alej ez
Modern British Art
Possibly one of the most important artists of 20th century Modern British Art. John Piper worked in the abstract, romantic and classical traditions as a painter, ceramicist, writer, designer and printmaker. In 1939 he created twelve illustrations for the book ‘Brighton Aquatints’.
18th and 19th Century art
Architect John Nash transformed the Royal Pavilion from a modest villa to a grand palace with both the exterior and interiors strongly influenced by the fashionable tastes of the orient. This is Nash’s illustration of the exterior of the Brighton Royal Pavilion in Brighton, one of the most depicted buildings by artists in the UK.
Botanical Books, Sussex Landscapes and poetry
Sussex by the sea – A poem by Rudyard Kipling
So to the land our hearts we give
Till the sure magic strike,
And Memory, Use, and Love make live
Us and our fields alike—
That deeper than our speech and thought,
Beyond our reason’s sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
Yearns to its fellow-clay.
God gives all men all earth to love,
But since man’s heart is small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
Beloved over all.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground—in a fair ground—
Yea, Sussex by the sea!
Pages from my sketchbooks with my illustrations of poems by
Walter de la Mare
By Walter De La Mare
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
By Walter De La Mare
The thin moonlight with trickling ray,
Thridding the boughs of silver may,
Trembles in beauty, pale and cool,
On folded flower, and mantled pool.
All in a haze the rushes lean –
And he – he sits, with chin between
His two cold hands; his bare feet set
Deep in the grasses, green and wet.
About his head a hundred rings
Of gold loop down to meet his wings,
Whose feathers arched their stillness through
Gleam with slow-gathering drops of dew.
The mouse-bat peers; the stealthy vole
Creeps from the covert of its hole;
A shimmering moth its pinions furls,
Grey in the moonshine of his curls;
‘Neath the faint stars the night-airs stray,
Scattering the fragrance of the may;
And with each stirring of the bough
Shadow beclouds his childlike brow.
by Walter de la Mare
I heard a little child beneath the stars
Talk as he ran along
To some sweet riddle in his mind that seemed
A-tiptoe into song.
In his dark eyes lay a wild universe,—
Wild forests, peaks, and crests;
Angels and fairies, giants, wolves and he
Were that world’s only guests.
Elsewhere was home and mother, his warm bed:—
Now, only God alone
Could, armed with all His power and wisdom, make
Earths richer than his own.
O Man!—thy dreams, thy passions, hopes, desires!—
He in his pity keep
A homely bed where love may lull a child’s
Fond Universe asleep!
Abstract UK art
A Ben Nicholson abstract painting from 1946 that is part of the collection of Pallant House Gallery in Chichester
This print shows the street elevation where the Pallant House Gallery lives in Chichester. This museum houses an early 20th century modern British and European art collection and is conformed by a Queen Anne 18th century townhouse and a 21st century contemporary extension designed by Long & Kentish in association with Colin St John Wilson.
Print by John Piper View of Chichester Cathedral from the Deanery 1975
Painters and illustrators of the West Pier in Brighton. Stella Langdale. Vanessa Bell. Spencer Gore.
The
‘Unknown Brighton’ is a 1926 book written by George Aitchison and published by John Lane The Bodley Head in London with illustrations of Stella Langdale.
Irene Stella Rolph Langdale (1880 – April 14, 1976) studied at the school of art in Brighton and then pursued further studies at the Glasgow School of Art with Maurice Greiffenhagen and Francis Henry Newbery. She sketched using charcoal and used oils, watercolour, pastels and etching techniques especially aquatint.
‘The Sun Rising’. A poem by John Donne. Prospect Cottage. Dungeness.
Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
In that the world’s contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere
‘The Sussex Walk to the Long Man of Wilmington’.
