Rule, Britannia
HE LEGEND OF English exceptionalism dies hard. Certainly in terms of art, “this little world, this precious stone set in a silver sea” stands somewhat apart from the European continent. British art is in many ways a thing unto itself, and the English have usually been happy, we do some celebration of our own with no less than three articles about major figures in British art—Holbein, Hogarth, and Turner. Thanks to institutions on both sides of the Atlantic—Tate Britain and the Getty Museum—important exhibitions on these three are currently on view, affording opportunities to reassess artists we thought we fully understood.
