Welsh art - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Welsh art refers to the traditions in the visual arts

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

associated with Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

and its people

Welsh people

The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

. Wales cannot claim to have been a major centre of the visual arts at any point, and Welsh art is essentially a regional variant of the forms and styles of the rest of the British Isles

British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

; a very different situation from that found in Welsh literature. The term Art in Wales is often used in the absence of a clear sense of what "Welsh art" is, and to include the very large body of work, especially in landscape art

Landscape art

Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...

, produced by non-Welsh artists set in Wales.

Early history

Prehistoric Wales

Prehistoric Wales in terms of human settlements covers the period from about 230,000 years ago, the date attributed to the earliest human remains found in what is now Wales, to the year 48 AD when the Roman army began a military campaign against one of the Welsh tribes...

has left a number of significant finds: Kendrick's Cave

Kendrick's Cave

Kendrick's Cave on the Great Orme, Llandudno, Wales, was the site of important archaeological finds by Thomas Kendrick in 1880. The site is a small natural cavern on the south of the Great Orme Head, a limestone massif on the seaward side of Llandudno .Kendrick, a lapidary, was clearing a cave in...

, Llandudno

Llandudno

Llandudno is a seaside resort and town in Conwy County Borough, Wales. In the 2001 UK census it had a population of 20,090 including that of Penrhyn Bay and Penrhynside, which are within the Llandudno Community...

contained "a decorated horse jaw which is not only the oldest known work of art from Wales but also unique among finds of Ice Age art from Europe", and is now in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

. In 2011 "faint scratchings of a speared reindeer" were found on a cave wall on the Gower peninsula

Gower Peninsula

Gower or the Gower Peninsula is a peninsula in south Wales, jutting from the coast into the Bristol Channel, and administratively part of the City and County of Swansea. Locally it is known as "Gower"...

which probably date to 12,000-14,000 BC, placing them among the earliest art found in Britain. The Mold Gold Cape, also in the British Museum, and Banc Ty'nddôl sun-disc

Banc Ty'nddôl sun-disc

The Banc Ty'nddôl sun-disc is a small, decorated, gold ornament discovered at Cwmystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales. It most likely was part of a funerary garment and is more than 4,000 years old, which makes it the earliest gold artifact found in Wales....

in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

are likewise some of the most important British works of art from the Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

.

Many works of Iron Age

Iron Age

The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

Celtic art

Celtic art is the art associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic...

have been found in Wales. and the finds from the period shortly before and after the Roman conquest, which reached Wales in AD 74-8, are especially significant. Pieces of metalwork from Llyn Cerrig Bach

Llyn Cerrig Bach

Llyn Cerrig Bach is a small lake in the north-west of the island of Anglesey, Wales. Its main claim to fame is the large hoard of Iron Age materials discovered there in 1942, apparently placed in the lake as votive offerings...

on Anglesey

Anglesey

Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...

and other sites exemplify the final stages of La Tène style in the British Isles, and the Capel Garmon Firedog is a spectacular luxury piece of ironwork

Ironwork

Ironwork is any weapon, artwork, utensil or architectural feature made of iron especially used for decoration. There are two main types of ironwork wrought iron and cast iron. While the use of iron dates as far back as 4000BC, it was the Hittites who first knew how to extract it and develop weapons...

, among the finest in Europe from the period. The Abergavenny Leopard Cup, from the decades after the conquest, was found in 2003, and shows the presence of imported Roman luxury products in Wales, perhaps belonging to a soldier.

In the Early Medieval period, the Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...

of Wales participated in the Insular art

Insular art

Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

of the British Isles and a number of illuminated manuscript

Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s possibly of Welsh origin survive, of which the 8th century Hereford Gospels

Hereford Gospels

The Hereford Gospels is an 8th century illuminated manuscript Gospel Book in insular script minuscule script, with large illuminated initials in the Insular style....

and Lichfield Gospels

Lichfield Gospels

The Lichfield Gospels is an eighth century Insular Gospel Book housed in Lichfield Cathedral. There are 236 surviving folios, eight of which are illuminated. Another four contain framed text...

are the most notable. The 11th century Ricemarch Psalter

Ricemarch Psalter

The Ricemarch Psalter is an 11th century Welsh illuminated psalter, in a late Insular style, that has been described as "Hiberno-Danish", instead of the usual "Hiberno-Saxon", as it reflects Viking influence. Its 159 pages are vellum, and include the following sections: Letter of St...

(now in Dublin) is certainly Welsh, made in St David's

St David's

St Davids , is a city and community in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Lying on the River Alun on St David's Peninsula, it is Britain's smallest city in terms of both size and population, the final resting place of Saint David, the country's patron saint, and the de facto ecclesiastical capital of...

, and shows a late Insular style with unusual Viking

Viking

The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

influence, which is also seen in surviving pieces of metalwork of that period.

There are only fragments of the architecture of the period remaining. Unlike Irish high cross

High cross

A high cross or standing cross is a free-standing Christian cross made of stone and often richly decorated. There was a unique Early Medieval tradition in Ireland and Britain of raising large sculpted stone crosses, usually outdoors...

and Pictish stones

Pictish stones

Pictish stones are monumental stelae found in Scotland, mostly north of the Clyde-Forth line. These stones are the most visible remaining evidence of the Picts and are thought to date from the 6th to 9th centuries, a period during which the Picts became Christianized...

, early Welsh standing stones mainly employ geometric patterns and words, rather than figure representation; however, 10th century stones represent Christ and various saints. Little metalwork survives from the early period of the 5th-9th centuries in Wales. However, archaeological sites at Dinas Powys have revealed various artifacts such as penannular brooches and other pieces of jewellery. Similar brooches have been discovered a site at Penycorddyn-mawr, near Abergele

Abergele

Abergele is a community and old Roman trading town, situated on the north coast of Wales between the holiday resorts of Colwyn Bay and Rhyl, in Conwy County Borough. Its northern suburb of Pensarn lies on the Irish Sea coast and is known for its beach, where it is claimed by some that a ghost ship...

, dating to the 8th century.

Wales has rarely been very prosperous, and the most striking medieval architecture is military, and built by the English, especially the famous "Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd

Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd

The Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd refers to a UNESCO-designated site of patrimony located in Gwynedd, Wales.In 1986, four castles related to the reign of King Edward I of England were proclaimed collectively as a World Heritage Site, as outstanding examples of fortifications and...

" and Beaumaris Castle

Beaumaris Castle

Beaumaris Castle, located in the town of the same name on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, was built as part of King Edward I's campaign to conquer the north of Wales. It was designed by James of St. George and was begun in 1295, but never completed...

in Anglesey

Anglesey

Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...

, recognised as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There are a number of impressive monastic ruins; Welsh medieval churches are nearly all relatively modest, including the cathedrals. They very often had wall-paintings, panel altarpieces and much other religious art, but as in the rest of Britain very little has survived. Conwy

Conwy

Conwy is a walled market town and community in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales. The town, which faces Deganwy across the River Conwy, formerly lay in Gwynedd and prior to that in Caernarfonshire. Conwy has a population of 14,208...

, an English garrison town with its medieval walls almost entirely intact, has excellent examples of a 13th century medieval stone town-house and Plas Mawr

Plas Mawr

right|thumb|250px|Plas MawrPlas Mawr is a historic house in Conwy, north Wales, dating from the 16th century. The house has been restored to its original appearance, with assistance from Cadw, in whose care it is now...

, a grand Elizabethan town-house built by a local who had been English ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor

Holy Roman Emperor

The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

. There are numerous fine country houses from all periods after the Elizabethan, many still containing good portraits, but these were mostly painted in London or on the Continent.

Landscapes

The best of the few Welsh artists of the 16-18th centuries tended to move elsewhere to work, but in the 18th century the dominance of landscape art

Landscape art

in English art

English art

English art is the body of visual arts made in England. Following historical surveys such as Creative Art In England by William Johnstone , Nikolaus Pevsner attempted a definition in his 1956 book The Englishness of English Art, as did Sir Roy Strong in his 2000 book The Spirit of Britain: A...

bought them motives to stay at home, and bought an influx of artists from outside to paint Welsh scenery, which was "discovered" by artists rather earlier than later landscape hotspots like the English Lake District

Lake District

The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...

and the Scottish Highlands

Scottish Highlands

The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...

. The Welsh painter Richard Wilson

Richard Wilson (painter)

Richard Wilson was a Welsh landscape painter, and one of the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768. Wilson has been described as '...the most distinguished painter Wales has ever produced and the first to appreciate the aesthetic possibilities of his country.' He is considered to be the...

(1714–1782) is arguably the first major British landscapist, but rather more notable for Italian scenes than Welsh ones, although he did paint several on visits from London.

Wilson's pupil Thomas Jones

Thomas Jones (artist)

Thomas Jones was a British landscape painter. He was a pupil of Richard Wilson and was best known in his lifetime as a painter of Welsh and Italian landscapes in the style of his master. However, Jones's reputation grew in the 20th century when more unconventional works by him, ones not been...

(1742–1803), has a rather higher status today than in his own time, but mainly for his city scenes painted in Italy, though his The Bard (1774, Cardiff) is a classic work showing the emerging combination of the Celtic Revival

Celtic Revival

Celtic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, which drew on the traditions of Celtic literature and Celtic art, or in fact more often what art historians call Insular art...

and Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

. He returned to live in Wales on inheriting the family estate, but largely stopped painting. For most visiting artists the main attraction was dramatic mountain scenery, in the new taste for the sublime

Sublime (literary)

The sublime is a form of expression in literature in which the author refers to things in nature or art that affect the mind with a sense of overwhelming grandeur or irresistible power. It is calculated to inspire awe, deep reverence, or lofty emotion, by reason of its beauty, vastness, or grandeur...

partly stimulated by Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....

's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful is a 1757 treatise on aesthetics written by Edmund Burke. It attracted the attention of prominent Continental thinkers such as Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant....

(1757), though some earlier works were painted in Wales in this strain. Early works tended to see the Welsh mountains through the prism of the 17th century Italianate "wild" landscapes of Salvator Rosa

Salvator Rosa

Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet and printmaker, active in Naples, Rome and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as an "unorthodox and extravagant" and a "perpetual rebel" proto-Romantic.-Early life:...

and Gaspard Dughet

Gaspard Dughet

Gaspard Dughet , also known as Gaspard Poussin, was a French painter born in Rome.A pupil of Nicolas Poussin, Gaspard Dughet was the brother of Poussin's wife...

.
By the 1770s a number of guide books had been published, including Joseph Cradock's Letters from Snowdon (1770) and An Account of Some of the Most Romantic Parts of North Wales (1777). Thomas Pennant

Thomas Pennant

Thomas Pennant was a Welsh naturalist and antiquary.The Pennants were a Welsh gentry family from the parish of Whitford, Flintshire, who had built up a modest estate at Bychton by the seventeenth century...

wrote Tour in Wales (1778) and Journey to Snowdon
Snowdon
Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales, at an altitude of above sea level, and the highest point in the British Isles outside Scotland. It is located in Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, and has been described as "probably the busiest mountain in Britain"...

(1781/1783) - though Welsh himself, Pennant had published a Tour in Scotland first, in 1769. The first of a series of British tours by another leading promoter of the picturesque, William Gilpin

William Gilpin (clergyman)

The Reverend William Gilpin was an English artist, clergyman, schoolmaster, and author, best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque.-Early life:...

, was Observations on the River Wye and several parts of South Wales, etc. relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the summer of the year 1770, but not published until 1782. Paul Sandby

Paul Sandby

Paul Sandby was an English map-maker turned landscape painter in watercolours, who, along with his older brother Thomas, became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768.-Life and work:...

made his first recorded visit to Wales

Wales

in 1770, later (1773) touring south Wales with Sir Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

, resulting in the 1775 publication of XII Views in South Wales and a further 12 views the following year, part of a 48-plate series of aquatint

Aquatint

Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching.Intaglio printmaking makes marks on the matrix that are capable of holding ink. The inked plate is passed through a printing press together with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to the paper...

s of Welsh views commissioned by Banks. This was an early example of many print series and illustrated books on Wales, often as valuable in terms of income to the artists as original works.
What might fifty years earlier have been merely regarded as inconvenience in travel could now been seen as an exciting adventure worth making the subject of a painting, as in Julius Caesar Ibbetson

Julius Caesar Ibbetson

Julius Caesar Ibbetson was a British 18th-century landscape and watercolour painter.-Early life and education:...

's Phaeton
Phaeton (carriage)
Phaeton is the early 19th-century term for a sporty open carriage drawn by a single horse or a pair, typically with four extravagantly large wheels, very lightly sprung, with a minimal body, fast and dangerous. It usually had no sidepieces in front of the seats...

in a Thunderstorm (1798, now Temple Newsam

Temple Newsam

Temple Newsam is a Tudor-Jacobean house with grounds landscaped by Capability Brown, in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

, Leeds) which shows a carriage struggling up a rough mountain road. It has a label on the back by the artist, recording that the incident occurred when he was travelling in Wales with the artist John "Warwick" Smith and the aristocrat Robert Fulke Greville

Robert Fulke Greville

Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Fulke Greville FRS MP was a British Member of Parliament and courtier.The son of Francis Greville, 1st Earl of Warwick and Elizabeth Hamilton, and brother to Charles Francis Greville, he was educated at Edinburgh University...

. Ibbetson visited Wales often, and was also one of the first artists to record the Welsh Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

, and scenes of Welsh life.

North Wales tended to be more visited; the young watercolourist John Sell Cotman

John Sell Cotman

John Sell Cotman was an English marine and landscape painter, etcher, illustrator and author, one of the leading lights of the Norwich school of artists.-Early life and work:...

embarked on his "first extended sketching tour" in 1800, starting from Bristol then following "a well-trodden path into the Wye Valley

Wye Valley

The Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is an internationally important protected landscape straddling the border between England and Wales. It is one of the most dramatic and scenic landscape areas in southern Britain....

, through Brecknockshire

Brecknockshire

Brecknockshire , also known as the County of Brecknock, Breconshire, or the County of Brecon is one of thirteen historic counties of Wales, and a former administrative county.-Geography:...

to Llandovery

Llandovery

Llandovery is a market town in Carmarthenshire, Wales, lying on the River Tywi and the A40 road.The town is served by Llandovery railway station, where there is a park and ride to Llanelli and Shrewsbury via the Heart of Wales Line...

and north to Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. Often colloquially known as Aber, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol....

. In Conway he joined a group of artists gathered around the amateur Sir George Beaumont

Sir George Beaumont, 7th Baronet

Sir George Howland Beaumont, 7th Baronet was a British art patron and amateur painter. He played a crucial part in the creation of London's National Gallery by making the first bequest of paintings to that institution....

" perhaps meeting Thomas Girtin

Thomas Girtin

Thomas Girtin was an English painter and etcher. A friend and rival of J. M. W. Turner, Girtin played a key role in establishing watercolour as a reputable art form.-Biography:...

there, and continuing to Caernarvon and Llangollen

Llangollen

Llangollen is a small town and community in Denbighshire, north-east Wales, situated on the River Dee and on the edge of the Berwyn mountains. It has a population of 3,412.-History:...

. A second trip followed in 1802; he continued to use motifs from his sketches throughout his career. Other artists often in Wales in this period included Francis Towne

Francis Towne

Francis Towne was a British watercolour landscape painter.-Biography:Towne was born in Isleworth in Middlesex the son of a corn chandler. In 1752 he was apprenticed to a leading coach painter in London, Thomas Brookshead...

, the brothers Cornelius

Cornelius Varley

Cornelius Varley was an English water-colour painter.-Biography:Varley was born at Hackney, London, on the 21 November 1781. He was a younger brother of John Varley, a watercolour painter and astrologer, and a close friend of William Blake, he was born in Hackney, London...

and John Varley

John Varley (painter)

John Varley was an English watercolour painter and astrologer, and a close friend of William Blake. They collaborated in 1819–1820 on the book Visionary Heads, written by Varley and illustrated by Blake...

and John's pupils Copley Fielding

Copley Fielding

Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding , commonly called Copley Fielding, was an English painter born in Sowerby, near Halifax and famous for his watercolour landscapes. At an early age Fielding became a pupil of John Varley...

and David Cox (for whose lifelong attachment to Wales see below). Even the caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson

Thomas Rowlandson

Thomas Rowlandson was an English artist and caricaturist.- Biography :Rowlandson was born in Old Jewry, in the City of London. He was the son of a tradesman or city merchant. On leaving school he became a student at the Royal Academy...

visited with Henry Wigstead, a colleague, and they published Remarks on a Tour to North and South Wales, in the Year 1797, an illustrated book.

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars made continental travel impossible for long periods, increasing the visitors to Wales and other parts of Britain. The young J.M.W. Turner made his first extended tour to South and mid-Wales in 1792, followed by North Wales in 1794, and a seven-week tour of Wales in 1798. He also visited Yorkshire and Scotland in the 1790s, but was unable to visit Europe until after the Treaty of Amiens

Treaty of Amiens

The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between the French Republic and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was signed in the city of Amiens on 25 March 1802 , by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace"...

in 1802, when he reached the Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

; he did not visit Italy until 1819. Many of his key early works drew on his Welsh travels, although they were painted back in London. His "first large classicising watercolour, a Claude

Claude

Claude is a relatively common French given name for males. It can also be an uncommon given name for females or a family name...

ian view of Caernarvon Castle at sunset" was exhibited at the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

in 1799, along with an oil of the same subject, and the next year he showed another view of the castle, this time with small foreground figures of "a bard

Bard

In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...

singing to his followers of the destruction of Welsh civilization by the invading armies of Edward I

Edward I of England

Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...

", another Claudeian formula that he was to repeat many times in major works for the rest of his career, and was arguably the first large "exhibition watercolour", reaching into the realm of history painting

History painting

History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...

Expansion

It remained difficult for artists relying on the Welsh market to support themselves until well into the 20th century. The 1851 census records only 136 people describing their occupation as "artist" out of a population of 945,000, with a further 50 engaged in fine arts-related occupations such as engraving

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

. An Act of Parliament

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

in 1857 provided for the establishment of a number of art schools throughout the United Kingdom, and the Cardiff School of Art

University of Wales Institute, Cardiff

Cardiff Metropolitan University is a university situated in Cardiff. It operates from three campuses: Llandaff on Western Avenue, Cyncoed, and Howard Gardens in the City Centre. The university serves over 12,000 students...

opened in 1865. Prior to that the annual report for 1855 of the government Science and Art Department

Science and Art Department

The Science and Art Department was a British government body which functioned from 1853 to 1899, promoting education in art, science, technology and design in Britain and Ireland....

shows a list of the larger type of Art School in many British cities, but none in Wales. Under a recently-introduced new system "Local Schools of Art" had been established in 1853 in Llanelly

Llanelly

Llanelly is the name of both a village and its respective parish in Monmouthshire principal area, within the historic boundaries of Brecknockshire, south-east Wales.- Situation :...

and Merthyr, but had already closed; those in Swansea

Swansea

Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...

and Carmarthen

Carmarthen

Carmarthen is a community in, and the county town of, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is sited on the River Towy north of its mouth at Carmarthen Bay. In 2001, the population was 14,648....

continued, and Flint

Flint

Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...

had applied to establish a school. There were "Drawing Schools" in Aberdare

Aberdare

Aberdare is an industrial town in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Dare and Cynon. The population at the census was 31,705...

and Bangor

Bangor, Gwynedd

Bangor is a city in Gwynedd, north west Wales, and one of the smallest cities in Britain. It is a university city with a population of 13,725 at the 2001 census, not including around 10,000 students at Bangor University. Including nearby Menai Bridge on Anglesey, which does not however form part of...

, but apparently nothing at all in Cardiff. However all these pre-1857 schools, except perhaps Swansea, were mainly teaching school age children, usually in their normal schools, and training in industrial design or teacher-training under the elementary stages of the "South Kensington system".
Graduates of the new fine arts Welsh colleges still very often had to leave Wales to work. Established artists continued to move in the opposite direction, at least for the summer. David Cox

David Cox (artist)

- David Cox Junior :David Cox had a son of the same name who followed his calling as a watercolour painter. He was born in Dulwich, but educated in Hereford. He exhibited in London from 1827, although today he is known mainly through association with his father. He died in Streatham on 4 December...

was an English 19th century landscapist who spent much time in Wales, for many years spending the summer based in Betws-y-Coed

Betws-y-Coed

Betws-y-Coed is a village and community in the Conwy valley in Conwy County Borough, Wales. It has a population of 534. The name Betws or Bettws is generally thought to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon Old English 'bed-hus' - i.e. a bead-house - a house of prayer, or oratory...

, a popular centre for artists, including the English Henry Clarence Whaite

Henry Clarence Whaite

Henry Clarence Whaite often referred to as Clarence Whaite was an English artist who is best known for his landscape paintings of Wales...

and the German Hubert von Herkomer

Hubert von Herkomer

Sir Hubert von Herkomer , British painter of German descent. He was also a pioneering film-director and a composer. Though a very successful portraitist, especially of men, he is mainly remembered for his earlier works that took a realistic approach to the conditions of life of the poor...

, one of whose wives was Welsh. Landscape continued to be the main focus, although the Welsh artist Charles William Mansel Lewis was among those who painted common working people, with varying measures of realism or picturesqueness. The "Betws-y-Coed artist's colony" was one of the groups forming the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art

Royal Cambrian Academy of Art

The Royal Cambrian Academy of Art is a centre of excellence for art in Wales. Its main gallery is located in Conwy and it has over a hundred members.thumb|right|240px|Plas Mawr, Conwy-Early history:...

in 1881; this was always a group for exhibiting rather than a teaching institution, based in Conwy, until 1994 in Plas Mawr (see above). The sculptors John Evan Thomas

John Evan Thomas (Welsh sculptor)

John Evan Thomas, FSA was a Welsh sculptor, notable for many sculptures both in Wales and elsewhere in the UK, such as his portrait sculptures in London...

(1810–1873) and Sir William Goscombe John

Goscombe John

Sir William Goscombe John R.A. , was a Welsh sculptor.-Biography:He was born in Canton, Cardiff and as a youth assisted his father, Thomas John, a wood carver, in the restoration of Cardiff Castle...

(1860–1952) made many works for Welsh commissions, although they had settled in London. Even Christopher Williams

Christopher Williams (Welsh artist)

Christopher David Williams was a Welsh artist.He was born in Maesteg, Wales. His father Evan Williams intended him to be a doctor, but he disliked the idea. A visit to the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in 1892, where he spent some hours in front of Frederick Leighton's "Perseus and Andromeda,"...

(1873–1934), whose subjects were mostly resolutely Welsh, was based in London. Thomas E. Stephens

Thomas E. Stephens

Thomas Edgar Stephens was a portrait painter and friend of Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom the President addressed as "Dear Tommy", born in Cardiff, Wales in 1886. His father Thomas Stephens was born in Aberthaw, South Wales...

(1886–1966) and Andrew Vicari

Andrew Vicari

Andrew Vicari is a Welsh painter working in France who has established a career painting portraits of the rich and famous. Despite being largely unknown in his own country, Vicari was Britain's richest living painter....

(b. 1938) had very successful careers as portraitists based respectively in the United States and France. Sir Frank Brangwyn

Frank Brangwyn

Sir Frank William Brangwyn RA RWS RBA was an Anglo-Welsh artist, painter, water colourist, virtuoso engraver and illustrator, and progressive designer.- Biography :...

was Welsh by origin, but spent little time in Wales.

Perhaps the most famous Welsh painters, Augustus John

Augustus John

Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....

and his sister Gwen John

Gwen John

Gwendolen Mary John was a Welsh artist who worked in France for most of her career. She is noted for her still lifes and for her portraits, especially of anonymous female sitters...

, mostly lived in London and Paris; however the landscapists Sir Kyffin Williams

Kyffin Williams

Sir John "Kyffin" Williams, KBE, RA was a Welsh landscape painter who lived at Pwllfanogl, Llanfairpwll on the Island of Anglesey...

(1918–2006) and Peter Prendergast

Peter Prendergast (artist)

Peter Prendergast was a Welsh landscape painter. After the death of Sir Kyffin Williams in September 2006, he was recognised as the leading landscape painter in Wales.-Early years:...

(1946–2007) remained living in Wales for most of their lives, though well in touch with the wider art world. Ceri Richards

Ceri Richards

-Biography:Richards was born in the village of Dunvant, near Swansea, the son of Thomas Coslett Richards and Sarah Richards . He and his younger brother and sister, Owen and Esther, were brought up in a highly cultured, working-class environment...

was very engaged in the Welsh art scene as a teacher in Cardiff, and even after moving to London; he was a figurative painter in international styles including Surrealism

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

. Various artists have moved to Wales, usually the countryside, though paintings of Cardiff

Cardiff

of around 1893-97 by the American artist Lionel Walden

Lionel Walden

Lionel Walden was born in Norwich, Connecticut in 1861. He first became interested in art in Minnesota, where the family moved when his father became rector of an Episcopal Church there. As a young man, Walden moved to Paris where he studied painting with Carolus-Duran. In around 1893-97,...

are in museums in Cardiff and Paris. These included Eric Gill

Eric Gill

Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement...

, whose colony included for his most artistically productive period (1924–1927) the London-born Welshman David Jones

David Jones (poet)

David Jones CH was both a painter and one of the first generation British modernist poets. As a painter he worked chiefly in watercolor, painting portraits and animal, landscape, legendary and religious subjects. He was also a wood-engraver and designer of inscriptions. As a writer he was...

, and the sculptor Jonah Jones. The Kardomah Gang was a intellectual circle centred on the poet Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas

Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...

and poet and artist Vernon Watkins

Vernon Watkins

Vernon Phillips Watkins , was a British poet, and a translator and painter. He was a close friend of Dylan Thomas, who described him as "the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English"....

in Swansea, which also included the painter Alfred Janes

Alfred Janes

Alfred George Janes was a Welsh artist, who is also remembered as one of The Kardomah Gang; a group of bohemian friends that included the poets Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins, and the composer Daniel Jones....

; the eponymous cafe was destroyed by a German bomb in 1941.

The situation gradually improved after World War II, with the appearance of new art groups. In the industrial valleys the Rhondda Group formed in the 1950s a loose group of art students whose most notable member was Ernest Zobole

Ernest Zobole

Ernest Zobole was a Welsh painter and art teacher. Zobole's paintings, originally oil on canvas, later switching to oil on board, reflected the industrial setting of the Rhondda Valleys...

, whose expressionist work was deeply rooted in the juxtaposition of the industrialised buildings of the valleys set against the green hills that surround them. In the 1970s Paul Davies formed Beca

Beca

Beca was a group of artists formed in the 1970s in Wales. The group was formed by Welsh artist Paul Davies and brought a new national consciousness to late 20th century art in Wales....

, a radical Welsh group whose founding was in part a reaction to the drowning of Capel Celyn

Capel Celyn

Capel Celyn was a rural community to the north west of Bala in Gwynedd, north Wales, in the Afon Tryweryn valley. The village and other parts of the valley were flooded to create a reservoir, Llyn Celyn, in order to supply Liverpool and The Wirral with water for industry...

. Beca used a mixture of artistic expression, including installation, painting, sculpture and performance, engaging with language, environmental and land rights issues.

Decorative arts

South Wales had several notable potteries in the late 18th and 19th centuries, beginning with the Cambrian Pottery

Cambrian Pottery

The Cambrian Pottery was founded in 1764 by William Coles in Swansea, Glamorganshire, Wales.In 1790, John Coles, son of the founder, went into partnership with George Haynes, who introduced new business strategies based on the ideas of Josiah Wedgwood....

(1764–1870, also known as "Swansea

Swansea

pottery") and including Nantgarw Pottery

Nantgarw Pottery

The Nantgarw Pottery was a noted pottery, located in Nantgarw on the eastern bank of the Glamorganshire Canal, north of Cardiff in the River Taff valley, Glamorganshire, Wales. It closed in 1920, when cigarettes replaced clay pipes...

near Cardiff, which was in operation from 1813 to 1822 making fine porcelain

Porcelain

Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...

, and then utilitarian pottery until 1920. Portmeirion Pottery

Portmeirion Pottery

Portmeirion is a British pottery company based in Stoke-on-Trent.-History:Portmeirion Pottery came into being in 1960 when the pottery designer Susan Williams-Ellis and her husband, Euan Cooper-Willis took over a small pottery decorating company in Stoke-on-Trent called A. E. Gray Ltd.. Susan...

(from 1961) has never in fact been made in Wales.

Despite the fact that considerable quantities of silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

(in association with lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

), and much smaller amounts of gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

, were mined in Wales, there was little silversmithing in Wales in the Early Modern period. It did not help that the Crown gave itself ownership of mines of precious metal

Precious metal

A precious metal is a rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical element of high economic value.Chemically, the precious metals are less reactive than most elements, have high lustre, are softer or more ductile, and have higher melting points than other metals...

s, which were largely used for minting currency, some of which was marked with the Prince of Wales's feathers

Prince of Wales's feathers

The Prince of Wales's feathers is the heraldic badge of the Heir Apparent to the British and Commonwealth Realms thrones. It consists of three white feathers emerging from a gold coronet. A ribbon below the coronet bears the motto Ich dien...

to show its origin. The Welsh gentry mostly had their silver made in English cities.

Welsh artists

For many more, see :Category:Welsh artists

Barry Flanagan
Barry Flanagan
Barry Flanagan RA OBE was a Welsh sculptor, best known for his bronze statues of hares.-Biography:Barry Flanagan was born in Prestatyn, North Wales. He studied at Birmingham College of Art and Crafts before going on to St. Martin's School of Art in London in 1964. Flanagan graduated in 1966 and...

, (1941–2009), sculptor
John Gibson
John Gibson (sculptor)
John Gibson, was a Welsh sculptor.-Early life:He was born near Conwy, Wales, his father being a market gardener. To his mother, whom he described as ruling his father and all the family, he owed the energy and determination which carried him over every obstacle.When he was nine years old the...

, (1790–1866), sculptor
Nina Hamnett
Nina Hamnett
Nina Hamnett was a Welsh artist and writer, and an expert on sailors' chanteys, who became known as the Queen of Bohemia.- Early life :...

(1890–1956), painter
Augustus John
Augustus John
Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....

(1878–1961), painter
Gwen John
Gwen John
Gwendolen Mary John was a Welsh artist who worked in France for most of her career. She is noted for her still lifes and for her portraits, especially of anonymous female sitters...

(1876–1939), painter
Sir William Goscombe John
Goscombe John
Sir William Goscombe John R.A. , was a Welsh sculptor.-Biography:He was born in Canton, Cardiff and as a youth assisted his father, Thomas John, a wood carver, in the restoration of Cardiff Castle...

(1860–1952), sculptor
David Jones
David Jones (poet)
David Jones CH was both a painter and one of the first generation British modernist poets. As a painter he worked chiefly in watercolor, painting portraits and animal, landscape, legendary and religious subjects. He was also a wood-engraver and designer of inscriptions. As a writer he was...

(1895–1974), artist and poet
Thomas Jones
Thomas Jones (artist)
Thomas Jones was a British landscape painter. He was a pupil of Richard Wilson and was best known in his lifetime as a painter of Welsh and Italian landscapes in the style of his master. However, Jones's reputation grew in the 20th century when more unconventional works by him, ones not been...

(1742–1803), painter
Ceri Richards
Ceri Richards
-Biography:Richards was born in the village of Dunvant, near Swansea, the son of Thomas Coslett Richards and Sarah Richards . He and his younger brother and sister, Owen and Esther, were brought up in a highly cultured, working-class environment...

(1903–1971), painter
Andrew Vicari
Andrew Vicari
Andrew Vicari is a Welsh painter working in France who has established a career painting portraits of the rich and famous. Despite being largely unknown in his own country, Vicari was Britain's richest living painter....

(born 1938), painter
Kyffin Williams
Kyffin Williams
Sir John "Kyffin" Williams, KBE, RA was a Welsh landscape painter who lived at Pwllfanogl, Llanfairpwll on the Island of Anglesey...

(1918–2006), painter
Richard Wilson
Richard Wilson (painter)
Richard Wilson was a Welsh landscape painter, and one of the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768. Wilson has been described as '...the most distinguished painter Wales has ever produced and the first to appreciate the aesthetic possibilities of his country.' He is considered to be the...

(1714–1782), painter

External links