Comments on: Is the idea of British Art a British Fantasy?

By: Chris Born

Chris Born — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:39:03 +0000

I think you have to first challenge the idea of Britishness. I mean, to me, Britishness only exists as a collective of several national identities shoved under one flag over the past 2000 years, and if anything art is an excellent reflection of this. This is not to undermine anything produced outside of England, but just that its probably the most prominent of national cultural identities that makes up ‘Britishness’. I suppose everyone in the British Isles is obsessed with the past and how that is some sort of fantasy to us, which might be what lumps us under one cultural banner and there is a lot of that in a vast number of artists and homegrown art movements.
Just a personal opinion, but I would consider the idea of British art a fantasy in itself. In a sense, art has always been for us a way of dealing with insecurities of social, political or economic scales and it’s awesome that the fantasy is what I would consider reflecting our own national “introverted”. I suppose under this idea, the romantics, despite having that thoroughly darling Britishness about them wouldn’t be classed under my weird categorization but then again, its an English artistic identity I’m talking about!
In a nutshell, British art is obsessed with fantasy, but whether its a personal reflection or outpouringis something left open to whether the concept of ‘British’ actually exists. Which it doesn’t in my humble opinion.

By: Paulina Little

Paulina Little — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:00:06 +0000

British Art – no its not a British Fantasy – its what I think of as shown in our top galleries and museums – even if the art in question not in fashionable at present. This includes the Victorian sentimental stuff, the fairies and fantasies, the woodcuts of Berwick, the sporting prints of Jorrocks, the resurrections of Stanley Spencer etc – you get my drift.
When I consider the Britishness of art as seen in local art society shows, Affordable Art Fairs etc, somehow this is not true British – maybe this is because the cultural establishment is taken so seriously in the UK and we, the hoi poloi, tend to bow to its perceived right to make pronouncements on what is good and what is not.
Perhaps this is because we are still living with the remnants of what the collectors of the past brought into the UK from their links with foreign courts, their cultural journeys round Europe in 18th and 19th centuries. They were rich and famous and powerful, they knew what was right. We, the peasants, accepted what they said we should admire and look up to.
We, the British now, are still dependent on being told what is ‘good’ and by default we tend to prefer the ‘good’ British stuff in our galleries, rather than the ‘good’ other art stuff that has yet to be selected by the top boys and girls who run our museums and galleries for us.

By: Hmaie Jones

Hmaie Jones — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:51:07 +0000

Is the Idea of British Art a British Fantasy – Yes and No (but in a good way!). It cannot be a fantasy with such talented artists as Banksy, Blake, Constable, Emin, Gainsborough, Hirst, Hockney, Hogarth, Ofili, moore et all, to bathe our eyes & inspire our hearts with. But it is a fantasy in terms of imagination, inspiration and limitless originality that has, is and hopefully always will be so typical of the immense quality of our bests’ works

By: Xavier Velazques (sadly, no relation)

Xavier Velazques (sadly, no relation) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:35:23 +0000

Aren’t most art forms a fantasy crafted by the artist?