Island to Empire exhibition Lisa visits the Art Gallery of SA in the Adelaide City region of South Australia

Step into the Island to Empire exhibition, currently on show at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and you step into one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of British art outside Britain.

For the first time, more than 170 major oil paintings, watercolours, drawings and sculptures from the SA collection are on display together, illustrating the development of British art from about the time of Henry the 8th to Queen Victoria. In a little more than three hundred years Britain grew from a relatively insignificant island nation to the centre of an Empire upon which the sun never set.

As the Empire grew and with it the personal wealth of the elite, artists like the Flemish portrait master Anthony van Dyck were lured to London to paint couples keen to show-off their privileged position and the land they owned.

Others were even more brazen pointing to their estates in a classic show of one-up-man-ship. In fact, portraiture was a feature of the art of the time.

“Entry to the sixteenth and seventeenth century portraits suggests a long gallery which became a feature of large Elizabethan and Jacobean houses,” explained Christopher Menz of the Art Gallery. “The portraits were all about demonstrating wealth, power and status and in some cases availability.”

Today some use the internet but back in Goodricke's day a Yorkshire gentleman might advertise his availability on canvas.

“Here we have Richard Goodricke. Very finely dressed, not wearing a wedding ring … that indicates that he's not married - perhaps available. Many portraits of the period were actually made for possible marriage proposal or marriage availability.”

Later innovations like watercolours meant artists like Samuel Prout could move about the country to record shipwrecks, which were a relatively common occurrence for a maritime power.

“It was a great portable medium unlike oils which were complex and often finished in studios. They could be carted down to the country and you could record images on the spot.

“It was a actually a very popular medium probably a bit like photography is today.”

But when it came to watercolours, none could surpass JMW Turner, regarded by many as Britain's greatest artist. His depiction of Alnwick Castle on a cold moonlit night shows just what could be achieved with this new medium. As does his atmospheric depiction of the English seaport of Scarborough.

“What Turner managed to achieve is unlike anybody else. He really pushed the medium, which was developing in Britain. He pushed it to its absolute limits and created these absolutely extraordinary effects.”

The Island to Empire exhibition is on at the Art Gallery until June the 13th.

Island to Empire
Art Gallery of SA
Nth Tce, City
Open Daily
Exhibition ends June 13th 2005