Unartistic reputation
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Britain has never enjoyed a sparkling reputation when it comes to the arts - we are associated with bad food, bad teeth and binge drinking. But is our bad reputation in the arts deserved? Well, how about William Morris? He was the forefather of interior design, creating Britain’s first truly bespoke middle-class home - the Red House. He designed everything from the structure down to the door handles and what he designed then, is still being sold today.
Now the art of music is one which we British had a major impact on. From Elgar, Britten, Holst and Purcell to the biggest pop group of all time: the Beatles. They not only embodied the very essence of the sixties, they also sold more than a hundred and ten million albums and in March 1964 they occupied the top 5 positions in the American charts. Finally, there’s one artistic sphere in which we are something of a world leader - literature.
Take Geoffrey Chaucer, who established the English language as an art form in his Canterbury Tales. And there was Byron, Austen, Scott, Joyce, Orwell, Tolkien, Wilde and the grandaddy of them all - Shakespeare. In my book, we can make a pretty big claim to being a thoroughly underestimated artistic nation
Now the art of music is one which we British had a major impact on. From Elgar, Britten, Holst and Purcell to the biggest pop group of all time: the Beatles. They not only embodied the very essence of the sixties, they also sold more than a hundred and ten million albums and in March 1964 they occupied the top 5 positions in the American charts. Finally, there’s one artistic sphere in which we are something of a world leader - literature.
Take Geoffrey Chaucer, who established the English language as an art form in his Canterbury Tales. And there was Byron, Austen, Scott, Joyce, Orwell, Tolkien, Wilde and the grandaddy of them all - Shakespeare. In my book, we can make a pretty big claim to being a thoroughly underestimated artistic nation
From the History Channel podcast 'Things that make us British?'
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