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A Picture of Britain : 15 June  –  4 September 2005
 
  A Picture of Britain
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an exhibition celebrating the British landscape - 16 June - 4 September 2005
 
Transcript: The Flatlands - Introduction

Listen to Audio Guide (MP3 format, 0.7MB)

David Dimbleby:
 
The Flatlands are not to everyone's taste; it's the sort of area of the Fens, and Norfolk and Suffolk and Cambridge; but particularly the Fens we're interested in because they were drained by Dutch engineers who came over by invitation in the sixteenth century. Dutch engineers inevitably settled and brought Dutch painting. And of course the Flatlands have a landscape very similar to Holland, with windmills and boats sailing down, that sort of thing. So lo and behold, what happens? The painters start painting in the Dutch style, so you have this very close relationship between Dutch painting and painting in East Anglia, with English painters really learning to look at their landscape through Dutch eyes.