Greatest Painting in Britain Vote
Encyclopedia
The Greatest Painting in Britain Vote was a survey made by BBC Radio 4
's Today programme
in Summer 2005 with the aim of discovering the best-loved painting
in Britain, in the manner of 100 Greatest Britons
, The Big Read
and the Mona Joe. It was criticised for the conservatism of the final selection as well as the unsuitability of the idea for the non-visual medium of radio.
The winner, voted for by the public from a shortlist of 10, was announced on air on 5 September 2005.
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
's Today programme
Today programme
Today is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...
in Summer 2005 with the aim of discovering the best-loved painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
in Britain, in the manner of 100 Greatest Britons
100 Greatest Britons
100 Greatest Britons was broadcast in 2002 by the BBC. The programme was the result of a vote conducted to determine whom the United Kingdom public considers the greatest British people in history. The series, Great Britons, included individual programmes on the top ten, with viewers having further...
, The Big Read
Big Read
The Big Read was a survey on books carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, where over three quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel of all time...
and the Mona Joe. It was criticised for the conservatism of the final selection as well as the unsuitability of the idea for the non-visual medium of radio.
The winner, voted for by the public from a shortlist of 10, was announced on air on 5 September 2005.
The Top Ten
- The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken up The Fighting TemeraireThe Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1838 is an oil painting executed in 1839 by the English artist J. M. W. Turner...
by J. M. W. TurnerJ. M. W. TurnerJoseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
- National Gallery, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
- National Gallery, London
- The Hay WainThe Hay WainThe Hay Wain is a painting by John Constable, finished in 1821. The painting depicts a rural scene on the River Stour in Suffolk. It hangs in the National Gallery London, and is regarded as one of the greatest British paintings.-Description:...
by John ConstableJohn ConstableJohn Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
- National Gallery
- A Bar at the Folies-BergèreA Bar at the Folies-BergèreA Bar at the Folies-Bergère , painted and exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1882, was the last major work by French painter Édouard Manet. It depicts a scene in the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris...
by Édouard ManetÉdouard ManetÉdouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
- Courtauld Institute GalleryCourtauld Institute of ArtThe Courtauld Institute of Art is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art. The Courtauld is one of the premier centres for the teaching of art history in the world; it was the only History of Art department in the UK to be awarded a top...
, London
- Courtauld Institute Gallery
- The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van EyckJan van EyckJan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
- National Gallery
- Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy 1970–1Mr and Mrs Clark and PercyMr and Mrs Clark and Percy is a painting by the British artist David Hockney. Painted between 1970 and 1971, it depicts the fashion designer Ossie Clark and the textile designer Celia Birtwell shortly after their wedding at which Hockney was Clark's best man. Hockney and Clark had been friends...
by David HockneyDavid HockneyDavid Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
- Tate BritainTate BritainTate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
, London
- Tate Britain
- SunflowersSunflowers (series of paintings)Sunflowers are the subject of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The earlier series executed in Paris in 1887 gives the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set executed a year later in Arles shows bouquets of sunflowers in a vase...
by Vincent van GoghVincent van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
- National Gallery
- The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston LochThe Skating MinisterThe Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch, better known by its shorter title The Skating Minister, is an oil painting by Sir Henry Raeburn in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. It was practically unknown until about 1949; today, however, it is one of Scotland's best known...
by Sir Henry RaeburnHenry RaeburnSir Henry Raeburn was a Scottish portrait painter, the first significant Scottish portraitist since the Act of Union 1707 to remain based in Scotland.-Biography:...
- National Gallery of ScotlandNational Gallery of ScotlandThe National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...
, EdinburghEdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
- National Gallery of Scotland
- The Last of EnglandThe Last of England (painting)The Last of England is an 1855 oil-on-panel painting by Ford Madox Brown depicting two emigrants leaving England to start a new life abroad.-Background:...
by Ford Madox BrownFord Madox BrownFord Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...
- Fitzwilliam MuseumFitzwilliam MuseumThe Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
, CambridgeCambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
and Birmingham Museum and Art GalleryBirmingham Museum & Art GalleryBirmingham Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England.Entrance to the Museum and Art Gallery is free, but some major exhibitions in the Gas Hall incur an entrance fee...
- Fitzwilliam Museum
- The Baptism of ChristThe Baptism of Christ (Piero della Francesca)The Baptism of Christ is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, finished around 1448-1450. It is housed in the National Gallery, London....
by Piero della FrancescaPiero della FrancescaPiero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
- National Gallery
- A Rake's ProgressA Rake's ProgressA Rake's Progress is a series of eight paintings by 18th century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–33 then engraved and published in print form in 1735...
III: 'The Orgy by William HogarthWilliam HogarthWilliam Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
- Sir John Soane's Museum, London