For many years Britain have its own unique and old history, for example, art. But in the beginning, British art was not as wide-ranging and popular as the present. It develops as time goes on, and there was big difference between each period, such as The Ambassadors from 1533, showing the lifestyle of upper class, Rain, Steam and Speed from 1844, it reflects that industrialists had new production techniques, Just what is it…? from 1956 which combined both fantasy and realism, and so forth. All those famous or non-famous works have shown the different themes and reflected the characteristic of the time. This assignment is going to talk about how does art reflects the British character, UK society from the pass and nowadays. In the end there will be a comparison with Chinese-style art.
British art has abundant characteristics, which is multi-media and through the existence of Empire, it is very wide: including painting, architecture, drama, sculpture and literature. Three famous painting will be discussed below.
The Ambassadors, in 1533, which was in the famous Elizabethan period, was the age of the Renaissance, of which integrated new ideas and new thinking. As a result, it brought lots of new materials into England. But not all the people could enjoy this new trend, it was only for the upper class that could have a portrait. Therefore, the paintings in Elizabethan era were very elegant and graceful, it need to be demonstrated the wealth and respectable lifestyle of upper class. Because of the apparent hierarchy, people had different characters in different classes, upper class people were more likely to behave selfish and educated (Sample, 2012). There were hardly any paintings painted for the middle class or worker class, yet the art started growing.
As for the Rain, Steam and Speed in 1844,