People of Culture

Many British writers, poets, painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, composers, actors, singers and dancers are known all over the world.

William Turner (1775–1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivaling history painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is i Ivy Bridge also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light".

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) was one of the most famous portrait and landscape painters of 18th century. Gainsborough painted more from his observations of nature and human nature. He studied portraits by van Dyck and was eventually able to attract a better-paying high society clientele including portraits of contemporary celebrities. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews

Among the outstanding British writers there is William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the greatest and most famous of English writers and poets, and probably the greatest playwright who has ever lived. Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). He wrote 154 sonnets and several poems, 37 plays among which there are such deep tragedies as "Hamlet", "Othello", and "Macbeth", and light comedies, for example, “Twelfth Night", and historical dramas: "Henry IV" and "Richard III". His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Robert Burns (1759 – 1796) was born in Scotland. At the age of fifteen, he fell in love and shortly thereafter he wrote his first poem. Burns also wrote many of the poems collected in his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, which was printed in 1786 and paid for by subscriptions. This collection was an immediate success and Burns was celebrated throughout England and Scotland as a great " peasant -poet".

Most of Burns' poems celebrate traditional Scottish culture, expressions of farm life, and class and religious distinctions. Burns wrote in a variety of forms: epistles to friends, ballads, and songs. He is well known for the over three hundred songs he wrote which celebrate love, friendship, work, and drink with often hilarious and tender sympathy. Even today, he is often referred to as the National Bard of Scotland.

Extract from “My Heart's in the Highlands”

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer -

A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;

My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) - a British writer, the creator of Sherlock Holmes is the best-known detective in literature and the embodiment of sharp reasoning. Doyle himself was not a good example of rational personality. He believed in fairies and was interested in occultism. Sherlock Holmes stories have been translated into more than fifty languages, and made into plays, films, radio and television series, a musical comedy, a ballet, cartoons, comic books, and advertisement. By 1920 Doyle was one of the most highly-paid writers in the world.

Besides stories about Sherlock Holmes he wrote historical and adventurous stories, among them “The Lost World”, “The Poisoned Belt”.

Arthur Hailey (1920 – 2004) was born in England and began his writing career as a pilot during the Second World War. After the war he lived and wrote in Canada, becoming a Canadian citizen as well as British; he also lived briefly in the United States. For the past twenty-six years Arthur Hailey and his wife Sheila made their home in the Bahamas. Hailey's novels include the bestselling “Hotel”, “Strong Medicine”, “Airport”, “In High Places”, “The Final Diagnosis” have been published in thirty-nine languages; an estimated 160 million copies are in print worldwide. Most of his books have been made into films or TV series.