Book Description

"Show-stoppers from many private and regional galleries, mixing paintings, watercolors, books, sculptures and photographs."—The Guardian"Stunning and constantly surprising. . . . Although it contains most of our great artists it is not a 'survey' so much as an unconventional, personal and thought-provoking take on British art, full of unexpected works and unfamiliar names, as well as familiar landmarks—over 300 works gathered from collections all over the world."—The SpectatorFrom the landscapes of Wilson and Constable to the visionary imagery of Blake and Bacon, this book, published to accompany a major exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, is a beautifully illustrated survey of British art from 1750 to 1950. British Vision presents some of the most celebrated works in British art history, selected from public and private collections in Europe, Britain, and the United States by Robert Hoozee, drawing on the expertise of Andrew Dempsey, John Gage, Mark Haworth-Booth, and Timothy Hyman. Among the artists whose work appears in British Vision are William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, William Blake, Henry Fuseli, John Constable, J. M. W. Turner, Richard Dadd, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, and Lucien Freud.Essays by a group of distinguished art historians focus on two defining characteristics of British art, observation and imagination, seen within the context of society, landscape, and the visionary. Together, they set forth important arguments about what makes British art recognizable, what gives it its typically "British" style, and how British artists have contributed to the history of art as a whole. This lavishly illustrated catalog is a sumptuous record of the most comprehensive exhibition of British art to be displayed in recent years, and represents a unique opportunity to discover the creative forces that shaped British art over two centuries.