Walk Through British Art
Walk through time and explore artworks from 1545 to the present day
Photo© Rikard Österlund
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These rooms offer a chronological display of Britain’s greatest artists, taken from the collection. Instead of designated themes or movements, the display is is arranged by decade, so you can see an array of art made at any one moment.
Tate Britain
Main Floor
13 rooms in Walk Through British Art
John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose 1885–6
The children lighting lanterns are Dolly (left) and Polly (right) Barnard. Their father, illustrator Frederick Barnard, was friends with Sargent. It was painted in a garden in Broadway, a village in south west England where Sargent stayed in the summer of 1885.
Sargent wanted to paint from real life. There were only a few minutes each evening where the light was right. He would place his easel and paints, pose the models beforehand, and wait for the right moment to start. As summer ended and the flowers died, he replaced them with pot plants.
Gallery label, July 2020
Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)
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Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion 1944
The title of this work refers to figures that are often featured in Christian paintings of the death of Jesus. Bacon said the figures in his work represented the Furies, ancient Greek goddesses. They punished human wrongdoing. The work was first shown publicly in April 1945. The Second World War was in its final months, after six years of conflict. The first photographs and film footage of Nazi concentration camps were being released. For some, Bacon’s painting reflected the horror of the Holocaust, in which six million Jewish people were murdered. It was also seen to reflect the fear caused by the development of nuclear weapons.
Gallery label, July 2020
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highlights in Walk Through British Art
Richard Dadd, The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke 1855–64
This scene shows a number of different characters, including the Pope and Dadd’s father. In the centre the ‘fairy-feller’ is about to split a large chestnut, to be used to build a new carriage for Queen Mab, a fairy mentioned in William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. The picture is painted in great detail. Dadd worked on it for between six and nine years. He painted the work while he was at Bethlem Hospital, having been sent there after killing his father and experiencing mental illness.
Gallery label, July 2020
Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)
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Henry Fuseli, Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers ?exhibited 1812
This dramatic work was probably inspired by a performance of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. Encouraged by the deceptive prophecy of witches, Macbeth and his wife plot to take the crown of Scotland by murdering King Duncan in his sleep. Here Macbeth emerges horrified from the murder scene off-stage, still holding the bloodied weapons. Lady Macbeth takes control of the situation but by the end of the play, consumed by guilt, she succumbs to madness and suicide. Fuseli treats the scene with an almost supernatural intensity.
Gallery label, February 2016
Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)
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highlights in Walk Through British Art
Sir William Quiller Orchardson, The First Cloud 1887
This is the last of three paintings by William Orchardson on the subject of an unhappy marriage. The empty space of the parquet floor emphasises the psychological tension between the couple. It suggests that their dispute might lead to more serious problems. When it was first exhibited these lines from a Tennyson’s poem Merlin and Vivien were published in the catalogue: ‘It is the little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute’.
Gallery label, November 2016
Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)
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John Constable, Flatford Mill (‘Scene on a Navigable River’) 1816–7
Landscape painting flourished in the 19th century, ranging from the epic, through rustic nostalgia to the naturalism championed by John Constable. He based what he called his ‘natural painture’ on study of nature, experience of his subjects and attention to working life, especially in the Stour Valley where his father was a miller and merchant. When possible, he sketched or worked on pictures outdoors. Flatford Mill shows barges approaching Flatford footbridge after passing through the lock near his father’s mill. Its bright, airy realism was unprecedented at the time.
Gallery label, February 2016
Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)
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In the Gallery
Audio Highlight Tour: Walk Through British Art
Listen to artists, curators and conservators talk about key artworks in Tate Britain -
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Kids’ View
Jacqueline Wilson's Magical Tour of Tate Britain
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Online Guide
Responses to Tate's Collection by our BAME Network
Read how voices from our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Network respond to the artworks in our collection