British Vision, Observation and Imagination in British Art, 1750-1950

From the landscapes of Wilson and Constable to the visionary imagery of Blake and Bacon, this book, published to accompany a major exhibition at the Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, is a beautifully illustrated survey of British art from 1750 to 1950. Spanning two hundred years, British Vision presents some of the most celebrated works in British art history, selected from public and private collections in Europe and the USA by Robert Hoozee, Director of the Ghent Museum, drawing on the expertise of the scholars Andrew Dempsey, John Gage, Mark Haworth-Booth and Timothy Hyman.

Among the great artists whose work appears on the book's pages are William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, William Blake, Henry Fuscli, John Constable, Joseph Mallord William Turner, Richard Dadd, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

Essays by a group of distinguished art historians focus on two defining characteristics of British art, observation and imagination, seen within the context of Society (Changing Society, British Humour, Modern Life), Landscape (Points of View, Everyday Landscape, Atmosphere and Dctail) and the Visionary. This lavishly illustrated catalogue is a sumptuous record of the most comprehensive exhibition of British art to be displayed in recent years, and represents a unique opportunity to discover the creative forces that shaped British art over two centuries.