Forward to 1.4.3.4 Luminism (1850-1875)
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Victorian Art refers to the distinctive styles of painting in the United Kingdom during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). Victoria’s early reign was characterised by rapid industrial development and social and political change, which made the United Kingdom one of the most powerful and advanced nations in the world.
Painting in the early years of her reign was dominated by the Royal Academy of Arts and by the theories of its first president, Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds and the academy were strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael, and believed that it was the role of an artist to make the subject of their work appear as noble and idealised as possible. This had proved a successful approach for artists in the pre-industrial period, where the main subjects of artistic commissions were portraits of the nobility and military and historical scenes. By the time of Victoria’s accession to the throne this approach was coming to be seen as stale and outdated.
The rise of the wealthy middle class had changed the art market, and a generation who had grown up in an industrial age believed in the importance of accuracy and attention to detail, and that the role of art was to reflect the world, not to idealise it.
[Source: Wikimedia commons]
[1433-10]
| Dickens and Maclise had become close friends the summer before this portrait was painted. Dickens recorded in a letter of 28 June 1839 that ‘Maclise has made another face of me, which all people say is astonishing’. At the time of this portrait he had just published Nicholas Nickleby. [Source: npg.org.uk] |  Image source: Wikimedia commons |
| TITLE: | YEAR: | FORM: | GENRE: |
| Charles Dickens, Portrait of | 1839 | Oil/Canvas | Portrait |
| ARTIST: | DATES: | ORIGIN: | MOVEMENT: |
| Maclise, Daniel | 1806-70, aged 64 | Irish painter | Victorian Art |
| LOCATION: | SIZE (cms): | [1433-11] | |
| National Portrait Gallery, London UK | 91 x 71 |
 Image source: Wikimedia commons | Queen Victoria holds her third son, Prince Arthur, as he is presented with a jewel casket by his godfather, Arthur, Duke of Wellington. In return the child hands over a nosegay of lily of the valley, a flower traditionally given as a good luck charm on 1 May, especially in France, to mark the arrival of spring. Prince Albert, wearing field-marshal’s uniform with the badge of the Golden Fleece and the ribbon and star of the Garter, stands behind, looking towards the Crystal Palace in the distance. The picture commemorates a date of threefold significance: the first birthday of the infant Prince Arthur, the eighty-second birthday of the Duke, and the opening day of the Great Exhibition. [Source: rct.uk] |
| TITLE: | YEAR: | FORM: | GENRE: |
| First of May. 1851, The | 1851 | Oil/Canvas | Portrait |
| ARTIST: | DATES: | ORIGIN: | MOVEMENT: |
| Winterhalter, Franz Xaver | 1805-1873, aged 68 | German painter | Victorian Art |
| LOCATION: | SIZE (cms): | [1433-12] | |
| Royal Collection Trust | 107 x 130 |
| The Monarch of the Glen is one of the most famous British pictures of the nineteenth century; for many people it encapsulates the grandeur and majesty of Scotland’s highlands and wildlife. Here Landseer depicts a monumental and precisely defined ‘royal’ or twelve point stag – a reference to the number of points on its antlers. Many of his paintings show interactions between humans and animals, but in this, his most well-known work, a single emblematic creature is viewed in a moment of exhilaration. It became widely admired in nineteenth century, when it was reproduced in prints, and achieved even greater renown in the twentieth century when it was employed as a marketing image for various products, so endowing it with global recognition. [Source: nationalgalleries.org] |  Image source: Wikimedia commons |
| TITLE: | YEAR: | FORM: | GENRE: |
| Monarch of the Glen | 1851 | Oil/Canvas | Animal painting |
| ARTIST: | DATES: | ORIGIN: | MOVEMENT: |
| Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry | 1802-73, agred 72 | English painter | Victorian Art |
| LOCATION: | SIZE (cms): | [1433-13] | |
| National Galleries of Scotland | 164 x 169 |
 Image source: tate.org.uk | Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 is a small painting by the Scottish artist William Dyce. It depicts his family on the beach at a well-known coastal resort, with Donati’s comet just visible in the sky. At this time, traditional religious beliefs were threatened by new scientific discoveries, revealing the vastness of space and the great age of the Earth. [Source: tate.org.uk] |
| TITLE: | YEAR: | FORM: | GENRE: |
| Pegwell Bay. Kent – a Recollection of October 5th (Comet Donali) | 1858 | Oil/Canvas | Landscape |
| ARTIST: | DATES: | ORIGIN: | MOVEMENT: |
| Dyce, William | 1806-64, aged 57 | Scottish painter | Victorian Art |
| LOCATION: | SIZE (cms): | [1433-14] | |
| Tate Galleries, Tate Britain | 95 x 120 |
 Image source: Wikimedia commons |
| The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo is a monumental wall painting by Irish painter Daniel Maclise, completed in 1861. It depicts the moment towards the end of the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, when the commanders of the allied British and Prussian armies, the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher, met near La Belle Alliance. [Source: Wikimedia commons] |
| TITLE: | YEAR: | FORM: | GENRE: |
| Meeting of Wellington and Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo | 1861 | Wall painting | History painting |
| ARTIST: | DATES: | ORIGIN: | MOVEMENT: |
| Maclise, Daniel | 1806-70, aged 64 | Irish painter | Victorian Art |
| LOCATION: | SIZE (cms): | [1433-15] | |
| Royal Gallery at the Palace of Westminster. | 368 x 1392 |
| A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881 is a painting by the English artist William Powell Frith exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1883. It depicts a group of distinguished Victorians visiting the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1881, just after the death of the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, whose portrait (visible in the archway at the back of the room) by John Everett Millais was included on a screen at the special request of Queen Victoria. The room is Gallery III, the largest and most imposing room at Burlington House. [Source: Wikimedia commons] |  Image source: Wikimedia commons |
| TITLE: | YEAR: | FORM: | GENRE: |
| A Private View at the Royal Academy | 1883 | Oil/Canvas | Genre Painting |
| ARTIST: | DATES: | ORIGIN: | MOVEMENT: |
| Frith, William Powell | 1819-1909, aged 90 | English painter | Victorian Art |
| LOCATION: | SIZE (cms): | [1433-16] | |
| Private Collection | 60 x 114 |
 Image source: Wikimedia commons | Bates Joel concentrated on romanticised landscapes, figures and coastal scenes. The artist’s most popular motive was the Scottish highlands. Joel was a much respected artist during the Victorian and Edwardian era, valued especially for the vibrancy of his palette and ‘flowing’, ‘sophisticated’ brush strokes, yet was largely forgotten (and underestimated) in the late 20th and early 21st century. A prolific artist, his work is often seen on the market today. [Source: Wikimedia commons] |
| TITLE: | YEAR: | FORM: | GENRE: |
| Scottish Highlands | 1890s | Oil/Canvas | Landscape |
| ARTIST: | DATES: | ORIGIN: | MOVEMENT: |
| Joel, Henry Bates | 1875-1922 | British painter | Victorian Art |
| LOCATION: | SIZE (cms): | [1433-17] | |
| Unknown |
| His Master’s Voice was the unofficial name of a major British record label created in 1901 by The Gramophone Co. Ltd. The phrase was first coined in the late 1890s as the title of a painting depicting a terrier-mix dog named Nipper listening to a wind-up disc gramophone. In the original 1898 painting, the dog is listening to a cylinder phonograph. It was a famous trademark and logo of the RCA Victor record label. [Source: Wikimedia commons] |  Image source: Wikimedia commons |
| TITLE: | YEAR: | FORM: | GENRE: |
| His Master’s Voice | 1898-1900 | Illustration | Logo |
| ARTIST: | DATES: | ORIGIN: | MOVEMENT: |
| Barraud, Francis | 1856-1924, aged 78 | English painter | Victorian Art |
| LOCATION: | SIZE (cms): | ||
| Became a trademark |
Forward to 1.4.3.4 Luminism (1850-1875)
Back to 1.4.3.2 Barbizon School (1830-1875) – Back to Realism and Barbizon index
Forward to Peredvizhniki and Abramtsevo Colony (1870 – 1890)