17th century English painting

1. Overview of the development of English painting

In painting, there is also a significant presence of foreign masters. Rubens and Van Dyck - the most famous, but not the only Dutch artists who worked in England; In addition, Italian and German artists are known in England. But there were also original currents, for example, miniature portrait painting - a specific English style.

The higher the demands made by the English rulers to the artistic dignity of painting the shades and stairs in their palaces, and the highest nobility to the artistic dignity of portraits, the demand for which grew from year to year along with the growth of wealth, the less they could satisfy their local painters. Among the foreign painters who worked in England, were both in the XVI and XVII century, some of the greatest masters of Europe. None other than Rubens painted the ceiling paintings for Banquet House Inigo Jones, and none other than Van Dyck gave his best powers to court portraiture in England. The forerunners and rivals of Van Dyck — the excellent Dutch portrait painters Cornelis Ketel, Gerard van Gonthorst, Daniel Mietens (circa 1590 to 1642) and Cornelis Janson van Zeilen (1594 to 1664) - also spread their art in London. Dutch painters of other specialties, looking for happiness in England, were marine painters Willem van de Velde, father and son.

As followers of Van Dyck in England deserve special mention two North German painters, so closely associated with the history of English painting, that their names can only be found in it. The eldest of them, Peter von der Faes, apparently from Zest in Westphalia (1618–1680), granted shortly before his death in London to the nobility with the title of Sir Peter Lele, was a pupil of Peter de Grabbers (about 1595 to 1655) , a skillful master of transitional time in Haarlem. In London, where Lelia appeared in 1641, in the year of the death of Van Dyck, he quickly developed on the study of the later Antwerp paintings by the English fashion painter. Especially popular were his portraits of women. Although alongside the portraits of Van Dyck, they are more sophisticated in composition, empty in execution, with a cold reddish tone of the body, but Leli was able to give them, along with a pleasant "resemblance", that exterior chic that the era required. In the London National Gallery is only the "Girl with cherries" of his brush. In the portrait gallery of the National Gallery, it is represented abundantly, and in Hampton Court there are “Windsor Beauties”, the so-called gallery of beauties of Charles II, in which there are a dozen or more of his portraits.

Fig. 192. "Girl with cherries." Sir Peter Lely's painting in the National Gallery in London

The youngest of these masters, Gottfried Kniller from Lübeck (1648–1723), studied with Bol in Amsterdam, but settled in London in 1674, where he later received a nobility under the name of Sir Godfrey Kneller. His numerous portraits are more superficial, drier in their plastic than the portraits of Lely, with more dispersed clothes, colder and more colorful in colors. They see the transition to the XVIII century. The National Portrait Gallery in London has a number of his portraits. Known for his ten "Beauties" in Hampton Court, 47 portraits of the Kit-Ket Club, published by John Faber in mezzotint. In Germany, he is represented in Braunschweig and in Dresden. His art gave him a considerable fortune and a tomb in Westminster Abbey. Of course, he does not belong to the great masters.

In the second half of the century, the foreigner who decorated the ceilings and staircases of the English palaces with extensive, cleverly, lightly and superficially sketched historical, religious and allegorical frescoes was Neapolitan Antonio Verrio (1634–1707), who worked from 1671 in England. In Windsor Castle, in Chatsworth, Burley House, you can get acquainted with his creations and - who are able - to admire them. All available his image on the stairs Hampton Court.

For all that, and in the XVII century in England there were enough of their masters. Firstly, the “miniature painting” gave new flowers, in the sense of small portraits painted on solid material, developed into a special English industry as far back as the 16th century. Sir Richard P. Holmes recently described it. Isaac Oliver was followed by: his son Peter Oliver (circa 1594–1654), also famous for his miniature copies of the famous large paintings of the collection of Charles I, and John Goskins (died in 1664), one of the most popular miniature portrait painters of his time . Significant was Goskins's nephew Samuel Cooper (1609–1672), whose delicate little portraits, full of pleasantly expressed peculiar life, with a firm and yet gentle letter and great clarity of color, can be best studied in Windsor Castle. Significantly all these artists, however, in this area was a foreigner, Genevane Jean Petitot (1607-1691), who worked in England for many years, then returned to Paris, and finally to Lake Geneva. His small enamel paintings, highly vital in expression and delicate in execution, are most often found in English private collections.

English masters of the great paintings of this period, who tried to compete with foreigners living in England, were also in most cases portrait painters. Copies with Van Dyck gained fame Henry Ston (died in 1653), the son of the sculptor Nicholas Ston. The name “Scottish Van Dyck” was received by George Jamson (1586 to 1644), who probably worked with Van Dyck in the workshop of Rubens. His well-observed, though dryly painted portraits are often found in Scottish rural castles. The first English painter, whose oil portraits can now be viewed with pleasure, was William Dobson (1610–1646), who developed on the copy of Van Dyck and Titian. His portraits are found in most of the large estates of England and in the National Portrait Gallery in London. To the best belong the portrait of the poet Cleveland at Bridger House and a large expressive, somewhat variegated family group in Devonshire House in London.

The rest of the English portrait painters who worked after Lele and Kneller should be left to the local history of painting, and, conversely, should mention Sir James Thornill (1676–1734) as the first “significant” English historical painter. He wrote the events in the life of the Apostle Paul in the dome of St. Ren's Cathedral, which was painted with a grizal (gray and gray) Paul, and the variegated, too variegated inks, a series of frescoes of the life of William III in the great hall of the hospital in Greenwich; in Blenheim, Hempton Court and Oxford (All Saule and Keynes College) you can also find his paintings. Already as the first English painter to receive nobility, he occupies a prominent position in the history of English art. But he did not rise above the lethargic ordinary eclecticism.

Everything known about the development of English prints collected in a visual presentation of Sydney Colvin. Only with the great masters of etching and mezzotinto of the 18th century begins in the field of reproduction the victorious procession of English art, which could not have been predicted from its achievements in the 17th century.