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About This Quiz
Long before the 1707 formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain, the nations that made up the western European state enjoyed a rich and distinctive art history. Over the years, British artwork has documented famous rulers and aristocrats, explored religious and cultural traditions and defied globally-accepted genres. The English Renaissance emphasized portraiture, while interest in landscape painting emerged around the 18th century. Over the centuries, the culture's artwork would shift from religious symbolism to portraiture to pastoral, from realism to impressionism to abstraction.Â
Whether you're an art history extraordinaire or have never set foot in a gallery (let alone the Tate Modern, Britain, London or St. Ives), it's time to test your knowledge of some of the most famous works in the region. Do you know your George Stubbs from Ford Madox Brown? J.M.W. Turner from John Everett Millais? Freud from Bacon? There's only one way to find out, and that's by taking the following quiz.Â
Sure, many can tell Banksy from Bridget Riley, but do you even remember L.S. Lowry? Only the best and brightest will pass this quiz with flying colors. Let me paint you a realistic picture: This test won't be too easely. You might actually find it quite hart!
"England's Pride and Glory" by Thomas Davidson
"The Accolade" by Edmund Leighton
Leighton's painting depicts an accolade, which is a type of ceremony that bestows knighthood upon someone. Often, the ceremony involves tapping a sword's flat side on the shoulders of a candidate. This painting is Leighton's most famous, and is considered a quintessential piece of medieval iconography, according to the Art Renewal Center.
"The Tête à Tête" by William Hogarth
"Mr. and Mrs. Andrews" by Thomas Gainsborough
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"Our English Coasts" by William Holman Hunt
"Ophelia" by Sir John Everett Millais
"Whistlejacket" by Sir Joshua Reynolds
"Mare and Foals in a River Landscape" by George Stubbs
This painting belongs to a group commissioned for several aristocratic patrons, which largely features successful racehorses. Stubbs was known for his amazing anatomical accuracy when depicting animals. This piece can now be found in the Tate.
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"Elizabeth I" by John Bettes the Younger
"Elizabeth I" by George Gower
"Lord Byron" by Thomas Phillips
"The Ditchley Portrait" by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger
Historians believe Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger painted this piece to commemorate an event that Sir Henry Lee organized for the Queen around September 1592. After Lee's retirement, he left to live with his mistress. While originally angry, the Queen was thought to forgive him for his antics at this particular occasion. Indeed, one of the Latin phrases on the painting translates to, "She can but does not take revenge."
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Anish Kapoor
Banksy
Banksy's "Swinger" is one of his myriad street art pieces. As many know, Banksy's real name and identity remain ever-elusive, perhaps in part because graffiti is illegal in most places. You can find his works (and likely many Banksy imitations) on streets across the globe.
Chris Ofili
Damien Hirst
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"Brighton Pierrots" by Walter Sickert
"Our English Coasts" by William Holman Hunt
"Swan Upping at Cookham" by Sir Stanley Spencer
This painting features an annual tradition that takes place on the River Thames. "Swan upping" refers to when the British catch the swans and mark them to indicate ownership. Though Spencer began this work in 1915, he couldn't complete it until 1919 due to his involvement in World War I.
"Freedom" by George Stubbs
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"The Lady of Shalott" by John William Waterhouse
"The Singing Butler" by Jack Vettriano
If you include reproductions of artwork, "The Singing Butler" is the best-selling work in the history of the U.K. The painting features a couple dancing on a beach on the coast of Fife as a butler and a maid hold umbrellas for them. As an iconic cultural work, some compare "The Singing Butler" to "American Gothic." Although it's beloved by the public, art critics have widely criticized it for its technique.
"Mr. and Mrs. Andrews" by Thomas Gainsborough
"Marriage A-la-Mode" by William Hogarth
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"The Destruction of 'L'Orient' at the Battle of the Nile" by George Arnald
"The Fighting Temeraire" by J.M.W. Turner
The Temeraire was one of the final ships to play a part in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1838. A paddle-wheel tug boat pulled it to its final docking site in Rotherhithe in London, at which point it was broken up into wood scrap. In a 2005 poll conducted by BBC radio, British people voted this painting as their favorite in the nation.
"Whistlejacket" by George Stubbs
"Robert Clive and Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey" by Francis Hayman
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"Lady Macbeth" by Thomas Gainsborough
"Ophelia" by John Everett Millais
This painting features Ophelia, a central character in William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet." Millais depicted her just before she falls off a tree branch and drowns in a Denmark river. It now can be found at the Tate in London.
"Desdemona" by John Singer Sargent
"Juliet" by L.S. Lowry
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"A Bigger Splash" by David Hockney
"The Last of England" by Ford Madox Brown
"England's Pride and Glory" by Thomas Davidson
"Going to Work" by L.S. Lowry
L.S. Lowry is widely known for his paintings of scenes of industrial districts in England, including this one, which he created in 1943. He often called the figures in his many urban settings "matchstick men." Lowry currently holds the record for rejecting the most British honors, including a knighthood.
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"The Lady of Shalott" by John William Waterhouse
"Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy" by David Hockney
"Marriage A-la-Mode" by William Hogarth
"Mr. And Mrs. Robert Andrews" by Thomas Gainsborough
This mid-18th century portrait is one of many Thomas Gainsborough depicted of people across England. Widely considered one of the most prolific British portrait artists of the 18th century, Gainsborough is also credited as the founder of the British landscape school.
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"Lady Godiva" by John Collier
"The Lady of Shalott" by John William Waterhouse
Tennyson's lyrical ballad of the same name tells the story of Elaine of Astolat, a young noblewoman imprisoned by a curse in a tower on an island. This Pre-Raphaelite style painting depicts the end of the poem, when she manages to escape her tower and float down the river in search of Sir Lancelot. Unfortunately, she dies before she reaches his palace.
"Ophelia" by Sir John Everett Millais
"Crescent Moon" by Montague Dawson
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"Ophelia" by Sir John Everett Millais
"Emma Hart in a Straw Hat" by George Romney
"Anne Boleyn" by Sir John Hoskins
"Lady Godiva" by John Collier
John Collier is remembered as one of Britain's most important portrait painters. Legend has it that English noblewoman Lady Godiva, Countess of Mercia, who died in 1086, used to ride her horse through the streets naked, only covered by her long hair. According to the tale, she did so to in attempt to be pardoned for her husband's cruel taxation policies.
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"The Hay Wain" by John Constable
Currently on display at London's National Gallery, historians consider "The Hay Wain" as one of England's most popular paintings. In the painting, three horses pull a wagon across the river. It was originally titled "Landscape: Noon."
"Our English Coasts" by Holman Hunt
"The Ancient of Days" by William Blake
"We are Making a New World" by Paul Nash
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"The Age of Innocence" by Joshua Reynolds
"Phyllis" by Louise Jopling
"Crescent Moon" by Montague Dawson
"Boreas" by John William Waterhouse
Named after the Greek god of the northern wind Boreas, this painting shows a young woman with the wind catching her scarf. After being lost for nine decades, it was put up for sale in the 1990s.
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"Crescent Moon" by Montague Dawson
The 20th century painter Montague Dawson is renowned for his depictions of sailing ships, most of which were warships or clippers from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Dawson received no formal art training, but is hailed for his immense technical accuracy.
"We are Making a New World" by Paul Nash
"The Ancient of Days" by William Blake
"Fishermen at Sea" by J.M.W. Turner
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"Recruit's Progress" by Carel Weight
"Merry-Go-Round" by Mark Gertler
"The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorous" by Joseph Wright of Derby
The full title of this painting is actually "The Alchymist, In Search of the Philosopher's Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and prays for the successful Conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers." Yes, that's a mouthful, which is perhaps why it has been shortened.
"We are Making a New World" by Paul Nash
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"The Death of Chatterton" by Henry Wallis
In this painting, Henry Wallis depicted 17-year-old English Romantic poet Tomas Chatterton, who was found dead after he poisoned himself with arsenic in 1770. In Wallis' time, many young, struggling artists viewed Chatterton as an icon.
"Charles Dickens" by William Powell Frith
"Lord Byron" by Thomas Phillips
"Henry John Temple" by Thomas Heaphy
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"The Charge of the 21st Lancers at the Battle of Omdurman" by Richard Caton Woodville Jr.
"The Last of England" by Ford Madox Brown
"Our English Coasts" by William Holman Hunt
"Spring in the Trenches, Ridge Wood" by Paul Nash
British surrealist painter Paul Nash created numerous depictions of warfare over the years. He also served as one of Britain's most acclaimed landscape artists of the 20th century and played a fundamental role in the development of the Modernism art movement.
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"The Age of Innocence" by Joshua Reynolds
Portrait artist Joshua Reynolds is well-known for his graceful depictions of children, with this one being perhaps his most highly acclaimed. Historians think it might feature his great niece, or the youngest daughter of the fourth Duke of Marlborough, though no one knows definitively.
"Anne Boleyn" by Sir John Hoskins
"Elizabeth I" by George Gower
"Child" by Nicholas Hilliard
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"A Battery Shelled" by Wyndham Lewis
"Sappers at Work" by David Bomberg
"England's Pride and Glory" by Thomas Davidson
"Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway" by J.M.W. Turner
As the title suggests, this painting depicts The Great Western Railway, which was one of the private British railway enterprises established in the 19th century. If you look closely, you can see a tiny hare in the bottom right of the track, perhaps symbolizing speed.
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"Our English Coasts" by Holman Hunt
"The Cornfield" by John Constable
This oil painting by prominent naturalist landscape painter John Constable features a lane that leads from East Bergholt to Derdham, Essex. Of his depictions of local Suffolk life, Constable said, "I should paint my own places best... painting is but another word for feeling."
"We are Making a New World" by Paul Nash
"Palmerston" by Thomas Heaphy
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"Leeds Market" by Harold Gilman
"Recruit's Progress" by Carel Weight
"Going to Work" by L.S. Lowry
"Work" by Ford Madox Brown
Art critics widely revere "Work" as Brown's finest piece. Brown set up an exhibition to display the work and wrote a paper explaining the picture's significance in detail. The painting exists in two slightly different versions, both of which were commissioned.
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"The Accolade" by Edmund Leighton
"The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt
"The Two Crowns" by Sir Frank Dicksee
"God Speed" by Edmund Leighton
Alongside the previously featured work "The Accolade," this 18th century work is another of Leighton's that explores the theme of chivalry. As the knight departs, the woman ties a sash around his arm. In medieval times, custom held that the knight should return it when he came back safe and sound.
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"An English Family in Macao" by George Chinnery
"England's Pride and Glory" by Thomas Davidson
"Mr. and Mrs. Andrews" by Thomas Gainsborough
"One of the Family" by Frederick George Cotman
Frederick George Cotman loosely belonged to the Norwich School of painters, one of the early provincial art movements in the nation. Like others in the school, naturalism greatly inspired Cotman. This charming work is his most famous.
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"Palmerston" by Thomas Heaphy
"Lord Byron" by Thomas Phillips
"Arthur Wellesley" by Sir Thomas Lawrence
"The Blue Boy" by Thomas Gainsborough
"The Blue Boy" is one of prominent British painter Thomas Gainsborough's most famous pieces. Historians believe the artist alludes to Anthony van Dyck due to the subject's 17th century apparel and the many similarities to Van Dyck's portrait of Charles II.
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"Phyllis" by Louise Jopling
"A Mermaid" by John William Waterhouse
"Self-Portrait" by Leonora Carrington
British-born Mexican artist Leonora Carrington was an important figure in the 1930s surrealist movement. In addition to her prolific paintings, she authored a number of short stories and founded the Women's Liberation Movement in Mexico in the 1970s. She grappled with mental health issues throughout her life, which her paintings often seem to explore.
"Emma Hart in a Straw Hat" by George Romney
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"Sea Nymph" by George Romney
"Lady Clare" by Elizabeth Siddal
"The Awakening" by William Holman Hunt
"A Mermaid" by John William Waterhouse
Tennyson's poem reads in part, "Who would be/ A mermaid fair/ Singing alone/ Combing her hair." Waterhouse exhibited his piece at the Royal Academy in 1901 to an overwhelmingly positive reception.
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"Haymakers" by George Stubbs
"The Last of England" by Ford Madox Brown
"Strayed Sheep" by William Holman Hunt
Known as one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, William Holman Hunt's works are revered for their detail, symbolism and use of color. In particular, Hunt said writers Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin influenced his messages, as they believed that the world should be interpreted through a system of signs.
"England's Pride and Glory" by Thomas Davidson
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Thomas Gainsborough
Ford Madox Brown
Thomas Davidson
Sir Thomas Lawrence
In addition to being one of England's leading painters, Sir Thomas Lawrence served as the fourth president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. A child prodigy, Lawrence supported his family with his artwork by the age of 10. This portrait of Queen Charlotte was his first royal commission.
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"The Ladies" by Wyndham Lewis
"The Tête à Tête" by William Hogarth
"Silver Favourites" by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
"Silver Favourites" depicts an ancient Roman scene. The frame of the original painting has a verse from William Wordsworth's poem "Gold and Silver Fishes in a Vase." In the poem, the speaker contemplates the captivity of the fish at the same time he admires them. In the same way, critics think Alma-Tadema perhaps wanted to communicate the beautiful-yet-confined nature of the women in the scene.
"The Painter's Daughters" by Thomas Gainsborough
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"Hylas and the Nymphs" by John William Waterhouse
"The Beguiling of Merlin" by Edward Burne-Jones
Burne-Jones painted this piece sometime between 1872 and 1877. The work depicts a scene from the Arthurian legend of Merlin, in which the Lady of the Lake, Nimue, entraps Merlin as she reads from her spell book. The artist also designed ceramic tiles, tapestries, mosaics and jewelry.
"King Arthur" by Matthew Paris
"John Evelyn" by Robert Walker
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"Symphony in White" by James Abbott McNeill Whistler
"The Little Tea Party" by Walter Richard Sickert
"Edwardian Interior" by Harold Gilman
"The Tête à Tête" by William Hogarth
"Marriage A-la-Mode" is a multi-part series by Hogarth that intended to serve as a moral warning of marrying for money. In addition to being a painter, Hogarth was also a printmaker, cartoonist, editorial satirist and social critic.
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Graham Sutherland
Sutherland served as an engineer's apprentice at the Midland Railway locomotive works in Derby before attending the Goldsmiths' School of Art in 1921. His work likely inspired this piece, "Slag-ladles," which depicts ladles designed to collect slag from furnaces and steelmaking units.
Robert Walker
John Michael Wright
Spencer Gore
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"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
"Ophelia" by John Everett Millais
"The Beguiling of Merlin" by Edward Burne-Jones
"Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus" by Joseph Mallord William Turner
As the title suggests, this oil painting depicts a scene from Homer's "The Odyssey," in which Odysseus (or Ulysses) stands on his ship after blinding the cyclopes Polyphemus and taunts him. Other allusions in the painting include the Trojan Horse on one of the flags and the horses of Apollo along the horizon.
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"Girls Running" by Philip Wilson Steer
"The Dance Class" by Edgar Degas
"The Dancers" by Wyndham Lewis
Wyndham Lewis co-founded the Vorticist art and literary movement, which was inspired by cubism and rejected landscape imagery in favor of abstraction. The movement was short-lived, perhaps due to the onset of World War I, historians think.
"Merry-Go-Round" by Mark Gertler
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"Palmerston" by Thomas Heaphy
"Arthur Wellington" by Sir Thomas Lawrence
"General Gordon" by Julia, Lady Abercromby
"Hugh Culling Eardley Childers" by Milly Childers
Emily Maria Eardley "Milly" Childers painted this portrait of her father just before his retirement. Afterward, the two of them traveled through England and France, Childers painting scenes along the way. Childers also served as an art restorer and copyist for Lord Halifax at Temple Newsam.
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"Portrait of a Lady" by James Wills
"Phyllis" by Louise Jopling
Louise Jane Jopling was among the most renowned female artists of the Victorian era. Her paintings fetched very high prices and were exhibited at venues like the Palace of Fine Arts and the World's Columbian Exposition. Her social circle included the likes of Oscar Wilde, painter Kate Perugini (Charles Dickens' daughter) and actress Ellen Terry.
"Mary Emma Jones" by Emma Sandys
"Fiammetta" by Emma Sandys
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"The Kongouro from New Holland" by George Stubbs
In addition to his portraits of dogs and horses, Stubbs dabbled in depicting Australian animals like kangaroos and dingos. Unlike most of his works, though, this piece didn't feature a live subject. Joseph Banks commissioned the work based on the skin of an animal he found off Australia's east coast during 1770.
"Australian Coast" by J.M.W. Turner
"Kangaroo" by Phillip Wilson Steer
"Animal" by Thomas Gainsborough
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"Hylas and the Nymphs" by John William Waterhouse
Historians pieced together the legend of Hylas from Ovid and other ancient writers. In the tale, the female water nymphs, the Naiads, abduct an enchanted Hylas while he attempts to take a drink of water. At the time, critics viewed Waterhouse's painting as a warning against dangerous, provocative female sexuality.
"The Lady of Shalott" by John William Waterhouse
"The Beloved" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
"Proserpine" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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"We are Making a New World" by Paul Nash
"Brighton Pierrots" by Walter Sickert
"Girls Running" by Philip Wilson Steer
This painting features two girls running along the Walberswick Pier in Suffolk, where Phillip Wilson Steer had many companions. Steer's works are considered some of the most genuinely impressionist pieces in Britain, and this piece in particular was considered quite avant-garde for the time. One critic even called works like this one at the New English Art Club "evil."
"Leeds Market" by Harold Gilman
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