British Art (1848-1919) (ART 460)
This course charts the evolution of British painting from the Great Exhibition of 1851 – which marked the pinnacle of Britain’s industrial world dominance – through to the end of the First World War. It looks at differing attitudes to modernity and in turn Modernism, in art, architecture and interior design; from those who embraced it as a long overdue, to those who resisted it every step of the way, in a nostalgic longing for a past ‘utopia’. The Great War is a logical finishing point as it halted the advance of Modernism and the positive attitudes surrounding modernity, leading to a post-war convalescent period in art and architecture. The course will specifically feature: The Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood. The Great Exhibition of 1851. The Arts and Crafts Movement. William Morris and John Ruskin. James McNeill Whistler. Art Nouveau. The influence of émigrés (Whistler, Sargent, Sickert, Monet, Pissarro) English Modernism and the Influence of Paris. Futurism Vs Vorticism. British Artists and the Great War.