Five Hundred Years of British Art

Book excerpt: A lavishly illustrated, beautiful collection of highlights from the Tate collection over the past 500 years Tate Britain is the home of British art from 1500 to the present day. This guide to the collection provides an essential introduction to the extraordinary development of British art over the centuries. British art is notable for genres unique to itself: group portraits, known as "conversation pieces," focusing on social relations between friends, family, and allies; themes from British literature, particularly Shakespeare, Milton, and Tennyson; and topical subjects in the late 18th and early 19th centuries reflecting the wars with France and the scientific innovations of the Industrial Revolution. The art from Britain in Tate's collection is rich with imaginative invention and reinvention, and this panoramic book celebrates this aesthetic ingenuity as an ongoing story, revealing how 500 years of art can act as a fascinating lens through which to deepen our understanding of ourselves and society, past and present, in both Britain and in the rest of the world.