English Painters: With a Chapter On American Painters

THIS brief sketch of the rise and progress of Painting in England has been drawn from a variety of sources. The little that can be traced of artistic work previous to the end of the fifteenth century does not fill many pages. Ignorance, carelessness, and "iconoclastic rage" all contributed to the defacement of paintings which we have every reason to believe at one time abounded in our churches and public buildings, as they did at the same period in Italy; and there is good evidence that some of our early English artists are not to be despised.

Our forefathers were too much engaged in the rough contests of war to care much for the arts of peace. In the sixteenth century several foreign artists of more or less celebrity were induced to visit and stay in England.