Britain gave the world the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts movement, played a leading part in Romanticism through J. M. W. Turner and John Constable, and helped invent Pop Art in the 1950s. Bridget Riley became a leading figure of Op Art.
Romanticism
Emotion, imagination and the overwhelming power of nature, in reaction to the age of reason.
Key artists: Francisco Goya, William Blake, Taras Shevchenko, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Pre-Raphaelites
A brotherhood founded in London in 1848 that rejected academic convention in favour of sharp detail, bright colour and literary subjects.
Key artists: John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, John William Waterhouse, Edward Burne-Jones
Arts and Crafts Movement
A design reform movement that championed handcraft, honest materials and beauty in everyday objects.
Key artists: William Morris, Carl Larsson, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Eric Gill
Bloomsbury Group
A circle of English writers, artists and thinkers that included Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.
Key artists: Vita Sackville-West, Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington
Pop Art
Emerging in Britain and the United States, Pop Art borrowed imagery from advertising, comics and consumer culture.
Key artists: Victor Vasarely, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Jeff Koons
Op Art
Optical art that uses pattern and colour to make the eye see movement.
Key artists: M. C. Escher, Victor Vasarely, Josef Albers, Bridget Riley
Frequently asked questions
Which art movement started in Britain?
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (London, 1848) and the Arts and Crafts movement both began in Britain, and British artists were among the first to make Pop Art in the 1950s.