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English art and architecture

English art and architecture have had a continuous if varied history from the 6th century AD. Usually they have echoed developments on the European continent, although English artists have often interpreted these in their own way. Twice, however — at various times from the 8th to the 13th century and again in the 18th and 19th centuries — the English school has made an original contribution. Two long-standing characteristics seem to distinguish English art and architecture from other European schools. One is a feeling for line and atmosphere as opposed to three-dimensional form, and the other is a high degree of dependence, since the 16th century, on private rather than public patronage.

Anglo-Saxon Period

Despite the presence of earlier Celtic and Roman Art in Britain, the history of English art and architecture may be said to begin with the Anglo-Saxons, who came from north Germany in the 5th and 6th centuries and occupied the country as far as the modern Welsh and Scottish borders. The first major event was the reestablishment of Christianity ("re-establishment" because there had been Christian communities in Roman Britain). Missions began arriving in the late 6th century, both in the south-east, directly from Rome, and in the north, from Ireland.

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The Roman missionaries brought with them religious books, church plate, and vestments. They also introduced the techniques of building in stone. Beginning in the 7th century, abbeys and cathedrals and churches were erected all over Anglo-Saxon England, although most of them have long since disappeared or been rebuilt many times. The typical Anglo-Saxon church — for example, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire (8th century, altered probably in the 10th century) — evidently consisted of a central chamber with smaller chambers opening off it. It would have been small and dark, giving the sense of a tightly enclosed place of refuge.

The finest artistic achievements of the Anglo-Saxon period were monumental carved stone crosses and illuminated manuscripts (religious books made in monasteries, the pages containing both text and exquisite water colour ornamentation). In the beginning these were produced mainly in the north, including northern Ireland, a region that in the late 7th and early 8th centuries was one of the most civilised in Europe. The masterpieces of the Hiberno-Saxon school, as it is called, are the Ruthwell (Dumfriesshire) and Bewcastle (Cumbria) crosses, both late 7th century, and two superb illuminated manuscripts: the Lindisfarne Gospels (c.700; British Museum, London), made by the monks of Holy Island off the Northumberland coast, and the Book of Kells (c.800; Trinity College, Dublin), begun on the island of Iona and finished at Kells, northern Ireland.

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Although Mediterranean influence is apparent in the curvilinear forms used in these works, the degree to which the forms are stylised (in the figures) or spun into beautifully intricate patterns (in the decorative pages) is unique. These and other English manuscripts down to the 13th century were admired and imitated on the Continent.

In the 10th century the emphasis shifted to the south, where a reform of the monasteries gave rise to a new school of manuscript illumination; it was called the Winchester School, although it flourished at Canterbury and other places as well. The manuscripts created by this school are characterised by broad leaf forms, often arranged symmetrically, and by bolder figures than are found in Hiberno-Saxon work. An example is the Benediction of Saint Aethelwold (975-80; British Museum, London).