From a white horse to a concrete house: Five major milestones in English art history
Charlotte Mullins, author of 'The Art Isles: A 15,000-year story of art in Britain and Ireland', looks at some of England's most vital artworks.
1. The Uffington White Horse, late Bronze or early Iron Age
For 3,000 years, the Uffington White Horse has galloped across Oxfordshire, maintained by 150 generations who have added fresh white chalk to its streamlined body. Was it a tribute to a sun god, whose chariot was pulled by horses? It is best seen from the air.
2. The Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century
A detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, showing Harlod swearing oath on holy relics to William, Duke of Normandy.
Although probably commissioned for Bayeux Cathedral in northern France, this embroidery, nearly 230ft long, was made in Kent following the Battle of Hastings in 1066 — and it’s coming this autumn to the British Museum.
3. Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery…, 1766
Wright spent much of his working life in Derby, where he was friends with leading scientists. In this painting, a travelling lecturer demonstrates an orrery, a machine showing the movement of the planets around the Sun. When it was first exhibited, it was praised as being ‘exceeding fine’.
4. Turner vs Constable, Summer Exhibition, 1832
Before the Summer Exhibition opened at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, artists were given time to retouch and varnish their paintings. When J. M. W. Turner saw his breezy seascape Helvoetsluys hung next to John Constable’s The Opening of Waterloo Bridge, he was worried: his pale boats leaving the harbour did not have the punch of Constable’s river scene, full of red flags and pageantry. He took out his paintbrush and added a vibrant red buoy to the foreground. Constable’s reaction? ‘He has been here and fired a gun,’ he fumed.
5. Rachel Whiteread, House, 1993
In the year Rachel Whiteread won the Turner Prize, she cast an entire terraced house. The bricks were peeled away to reveal an uncanny concrete interior, a mausoleum to all the families who had lived there. It made headline news and was variously described as a ‘bunker’, an ‘eyesore’ and ‘an exceptional work of art’. It stood for about three months.
