Excerpt from Catalogue of the National Gallery of British Art<br><br>It cannot, therefore, be gainsaid that for nearly two hundred years there has been a National School of Art in England, to say nothing of Scotland (especially in more recent years) and also Ireland. Another disputed question, however, arises: whether a school of artists should be called national from the subjects produced by them, or from the manner or technique with which these subjects are produced.<br><br>So far as the subjects are concerned, it is evident to any student of art in Europe that art in England has been for the greater part of its history, and more than in any other country, devoted to the purpose of illustration of historical and literary anecdote, including in this the field of portraiture. It has formed part of the national desire for literary expression, finding its vent in prose, poetry, or paint. It is not difficult to draw an analogy between the enormous literary output of the English-speaking race, and its efforts to express itself in art. There will be found the same strikingly pre-eminent outbursts of genius, and the same boundless tracts of mediocrity.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.