Spring Morning: Haverstock Hill by George Clausen

If you want to learn about the great transformation in the human evolution from handy labor to machinery production, besides reading books, you can have a look at the following exhibition. On November 14, Toward Modernity—Three Centuries of British Art exhibition, jointly sponsored by Beijing World Art Museum of China Millennium Monument, Liaoning Provincial Museum, Jiangxi Provincial Museum, Guangdong Art Museum, Henan Provincial Museum, Hunan Provincial Museum, Greater Manchester Museum Consortium, National Tour Exhibition Alliance and Bury Art Museum, was launched in Beijing World Art Museum. It was the first time that China had staged an exhibition to showcase British art evolution from the mid 18th century till current days in an all-round way. Moreover, the great social changes arising from Industrial Revolution convey some interesting messages in British history. Just as Christopher Newall said, “These works reflect an unusual topic about British paintings—painting is as important as academic research, culture and even national politics”. 

This exhibition was divided into 6 units, namely British People, Setting Observation, Natural Landscape, Story-telling, Poetic Imagination and Modernism, and 80 exhibits involved oil painting, print, water color and sculpture, all of which come from 18 museums and collection agencies in Northwest UK around the center of Manchester. Reportedly the great influence caused by Industrial Revolution led to a prime art development in this region by making it possible for rich manufacturers and merchants to fund artists’ creation and purchase quantities of excellent works. 

This exhibition ranged from traditional paintings to those avant-garde works and involved mainstream as well as rebelling schools. As to variety of painting schools, the theme and category can vary from traditional history and religion to the two most familiar types—portrait and landscape and then to the vivid description of ordinary British people’s life. George Clausen, who dwelled in Hampstead for a decade from 1877, created lots of works related to London. His works in 1881 titled Spring Morning: Haverstock Hill was exhibited, in which a road steadily started its way from downtown of London up to Hampstead that used to be a suburb. On both sides of this simple but graceful road stood those spacious villas built in the late 19th century. In the process of urbanization in the 18th and 19th centuries, the British bourgeoisies gradually came into existence and took shape at the mid 19th century. Along with considerable revenue, some moved to the suburb constantly in order to evade pollution in the downtown and pursue privacy, which greatly expanded the coverage of British cities to suburb. Then economic leap, population boom and privacy priority led to many villa zones in the suburb of London. With its unique art language, this painting enabled the current audiences to know more about the real life of varied British people at that time.