English Painters, with a Chapter on American Painters

This is a passionate reclamation of English artistic heritage. Written in the late Victorian era, Wilmot-Buxton mounts a spirited defense against the long-standing assumption that England possessed no native painting tradition before the Renaissance. The book traces English painting from its medieval origins through to the triumphant flowering of the 18th century, revealing a continuity of artistic achievement that previous critics had dismissed or ignored. Along the way, the author rescues from obscurity the forgotten medieval and early modern painters who laid the groundwork for the great masters to come. The text illuminates how foreign artists, especially the Flemish and Dutch, gradually shaped English sensibility, until artists like Hogarth, Reynolds, and Gainsborough finally forged a distinctly English visual language. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand not just which painters mattered, but why a nation's artistic identity takes centuries to crystallize. The book speaks to art lovers who believe history is always told by the victors, and who delight in discovering that the canon has gaps waiting to be filled.