The first President of the Royal Academy Reynolds was a quite prolific and influential portrait artist. He took up the presidency at the famous London artistic institution in 1768 and held the position until his death in 1792. On becoming President, Reynolds was at the high of artistic prowess counting among his friends and sitters many of the most notable and influential writers, thinkers, and actors of eighteenth-century England. Through this central position within the art establishment, he authored his Discourses of Art written between 1769 and 1790, providing an argument for the theory and practice of art which aimed to earn himself a major place in the history of aesthetics. Fellow academicians such as Nathaniel Hone however, questioned Reynolds’ methods, challenging the sentiments made by the first President in his sixth discourse on ‘Imitation’. His painting the Conjurer questioned the use of imitation within Reynolds’ art, and accused Reynolds of being a plagiarist and an illusionist [Read more]. Viewing Reynolds art today one sees that he does indeed borrow many ideas from classical italian renaissance art, often referred to as the ‘Grand Style’. Where Reynolds did experiment was with his use of different paints, and his use of carmine red pigment in particular. This was used to put a reddish realistic colour on the sitter’s face, but today the viewer sees quite the opposite effect as this slightly corrosive substance pales with the fullness of time, leaving many of Reynolds’ faces with a white and expressionless melancholy.   

One commonly peddled narrative by historians is that ‘history is written by the victors’. The work of William Dobson however, is one notable example that rides against this common place theory. Following the death of Antony Van Dyck in 1641 this precocious young portrait painter became the leading court painter to Charles I. Within the following year the English Civil War had broken out, and the talented Dobson was put to work by the embattled King to paint propaganda portraits of his most politically and powerful Cavalier chums. During the war, Dobson based himself in the Royalist stronghold of Oxford and St John’s College. His portraits depict raw human expression and character at its finest. Dobson’s genius came to abrupt end at the tender age of 36, but in capturing and preserving the true likeness of prominent Royalists, Dobson’s paintings remain a great expression of conviction within this most fractious period of British history.

The glow from one of Joseph Wright of Derby’s canvases catches the viewer's attention across a busy art gallery and instantly draws them into scene of the action. The artist is a master of painting light sources be it candle, moonlight or fire, from which the sitter’s face is illuminated with fine and imaginative expressive detail. His paintings largely reflect the time in which lived and worked, a period when Britain’s industrial revolution and England’s Enlightenment was beginning to take flux. It was in these times of immense industrial change in Britain, forging a new generation of large civic cities that works such as the one shown left ‘An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump’ were born. The scientist conducting the experiment around a table of onlookers stares directly out at us, the viewer, inviting us into the spectacle. Private scientific demonstrations to a curious upper class gentry became popular in the 1760s and within this scene the scientist is demonstrating Boyle’s law of thermodynamics. The experiment on show is a fine balancing act, as the scientist demonstrates the difference in pressure exerted by the air and a vacuum. The father, shown comforting one of his two daughters who is clearly distressed by the whole spectacle, points towards the dove in a manner similar to that depicted in early religious art. The dove which represents the holy spirit within most of Christianity, here instead represents scientific truth and universal reality of the modern age.

William Blake was a great story teller with both the pen and the brush. Largely ignored during his own lifetime, today Blake is seen as a key figure within the Romantic age. His paintings and drawings are often flights of fancy, idealising the human body against a backdrop of heavenly underworlds or devilish hell. Many in his own time considered him a mad outsider with an overly creative mind and one lacking the substantive joined up thought needed to collaborate with the social elite. Blake illustrated many of his own writings such as Jerusalem (1804-1820) as well as other well known pieces of literature from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Many of these vivid drawings were re-discovered by Victorian printers some fifty years after the artist’s death who saw them as a key opportunity to sell popular works of literature to a wider newly educated audience. This mass publication led to Blake’s work becoming widely circulated and greatly admired among the British public, who in a recent 2002 poll voted Blake as the 38th greatest ever Briton.

Lawrence’s portraits help define the British Regency era. They tell us who was important, how they wanted to be perceived and most importantly, what they looked like in an age before photography became commonplace. Lawrence talent of portrait painting of true likeness led to several high-profile royal commissions. By 1790 at the tender age of 21 he had already been commissioned to paint King George III wife Queen Charlotte. He was the most in-demand portrait artist of his day, painting everyone from the Britain’s military hero the Duke of Wellington (shown left), to Pope Pius VII in Rome. Lawrence’s love affairs with Sarah Siddons and her two daughters Sally and Maria was some of the biggest celebrity gossip of Regency London, filling the gossip columns of newly established newspapers and also the imaginations of some of the great Romantic writers of the day. Lawrence’s art remains in high demand today with a retrospective in 2010 at the National Gallery proving one of its most popular of recent times.

A founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, Millais’ art was influenced by a profound love of art and literature. His paintings are probably the most recognisable amongst the extremely talented collection of pre-Raphaelite artists which included some of the greatest names of Victorian art such as William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Frederic Leighton and Ford Madox Brown. His paintings are typical of the Brotherhood’s fine close attention to detail, precise fine brush strokes combined with a great kaleidoscope of colour. Inspired by William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Millais’ painting Ophelia (shown left) is the quintessential pre-Raphaelite painting. Ophelia body is depicted floating down a river in Denmark depicting the death scene from the great bard work which has been described as one of the most poetic pieces of writing in all of English literature. Studying the painting in detail one of the most striking things is the contrast between the lifeless white flesh of Ophelia’s face and body, and the vivid green surroundings and bright colourful flowers. This painting remains a highlight of anyone’s visit to the Tate Britain, and can rightly claim the title of a true British masterpiece.

A supremely talented portrait painter, Gainsborough’s was a great rival, (and a far better artist in my opinion) to the 1st President of the Royal Academy Joshua Reynolds (10th on this list). Whilst Reynolds main influences came from the Italian Renaissance, Gainsborough took his influence from Dutch and Flemish painting, and in-particular the work of the great Anthony Van Dyck. Gainsborough was obsessed by the Dutch attention to detail, to pose, costume, facial expression and the symbolism of background paraphernalia. Gainsborough was also a great innovator, re-vitalising the Grand Manner style of combining formal portraiture and landscape painting. Painting the landed gentry amongst their country estates, wife on shoulder became a signature trademark. No more so than in Gainsborough’s highly popular painting Mr and Mrs Andrews (shown left).

Hogarth was a great satirist and a terrific imaginative artist. His genre scenes depicting 18th century London street and moral life were widely reproduced and distributed in prints among the pubs, taverns and coffee shops of 18th century London. Hogarth’s true genius came from his ability to connect directly to the common man and women throughout a career in which he was equally lauded by fellow society elites as a true master painter. Perhaps Hogarth’s most recognised and studied work is A Rake’s Progress eight painted scenes which describe the rise and moral decline of the central character Tom Rakewell who comes into money following the death of his estranged father, but squanders the fortune on hedonistic earthly pleasures such as alcohol, prostitutes and gambling. The fourth scene shown left Tom is shown dodging the bailiffs as he makes his way to party on the other side of town. The realism of Hogarth's moral storyboard paintings such as Rakes and Harlot’s Progress depicted life’s gritty realities better than most modern dramas could today.

Constable was arguably Britain’s greatest ever landscape painter. Whilst the country was fundamentally changing due to the huge smokey overhaul of the industrial revolution, Constable’s landscapes helped document a calmer, more tranquil place. The Hay Wain shown left painted is one of Britain’s favourite paintings and displays all of Constable’s genius traits. The painting depicts an idyllic rural setting on the banks of the river Stour on the border between Suffolk and Essex, a place close to where the talented Constable grew up as a child. A large cart or ‘Hay Wain’ being pulled by horses driven by farmhands across the river provides the main focal point. The natural lighting and earthy colours used in this outdoor scene, was seen as highly influential to the French impressionists painters who built upon Constables outdoor landscape techniques in their own ‘en plain air’ style. Indeed when The Hay Wain went to France for exhibition it won the gold medal from the King Charles X. In a 2005 poll by BBC Radio 4 Today Programme the painting was voted Britain’s 2nd most popular painting.

Joseph Mallord William Turner is Britain’s most admired artist, a skillful landscape, scene and seascape painter who transcended the skill of painting to another level altogether. A ridiculously naturally talented artist, Turner exhibited works at the Royal Academy from the age of just fifteen years old. Turner’s real skill in painting came from the energy and movement he managed to inject into every canvas. In observing a Turner, clouds aren’t static blogs of cotton, rather they are a swirling vortex that frames the main scene. His style evolved over time, becoming more brash and confident whilst allowing the viewer greater room for interpretation. Turner’s most celebrated work The Fighting Temeraire painted in 1839 shown left demonstrates the artist’s sound technique and perfect composition. The painting depicts one of Britain’s most distinguished warships being tugged into the sunset and to the scrap yard. Many have interpreted this symbolising the passing of time, or even the passing of Britain’s imperial high-point. The Temeraire whilst painted in great detail, appears in a slightly ghostly grey colour, whilst the setting sun scatters bright light across the canvas in the form of reds, oranges and purples. It is thought Turner considered it one of his finest works, calling it his ‘darling’ holding on to it despite much dealer interest before bequeathing it to the nation upon his death. This masterpiece was deservedly voted the nation’s favourite painting in the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme’s 2005 poll.