Industrial Revolution through Arts

Sebastian Pether (1820). This is an oil painting of a view of Manchester from Kersal Moor by artist Sebastian Pether. Kersal Moor is an area of moorland in Salford. This shows a pre industrial view before the skyline was filled with mills and chimneys. http://www.gmmg.org.uk/our-connected-history/item/view-from-kersal-moor/ [Accessed July 23, 2018]

William Wyld's (1852). Queen Victoria had first seen William Wyld's work in 1843 in the collection of her aunt Louise, Queen of the Belgians, when choosing some of these watercolours for her own collection, and Queen Louise subsequently ordered more works from Wyld to send to Victoria. The artist was invited to stay at Balmoral in September and October 1852. The Queen had visited Liverpool on 9 October 1851 and Manchester over the following two days, and commissioned a watercolour of each of the cities from Wyld soon after. Manchester was then the world's greatest producer of cotton textiles and, with Salford, had grown rapidly to a conurbation of almost 400,000 inhabitants by mid-century. The overcrowding and slum conditions of the workers' housing were a severe social problem, and the Queen noted in her Journal: 'The mechanics and work-people, dressed in their best, were ranged along the streets in their button-holes; both in Salford and Manchester, a very intelligent, but painfully unhealthy-looking population they all were, men as well as women'. Wyld's view of the city is however overtly romantic. The smoking chimneys serve only to accentuate the golden light of the setting sun, as in a painting by Claude, and the rustics and goats in the foreground are similarly reminiscent of the views of Italy produced in great numbers by the English watercolourists of the previous half-century. https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/920223/manchester-from-kersal-moor [Accessed July 23, 2018]

'The Progress of Steam - A View in Regent Park 1831, 1828. Humorous futuristic colour illustration by Henry Thomas. Science Museum Group Collection© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum. Colour print (reproduction). The Progress of Steam. Allen's Illustration of Modern Prophecy. A View in Regent Park, 1831. (Original print published by S and J Fuller at their Sporting Gallery, 34 Rathbone Place, London. 1828/02/20).
Science Museum Group. The Progress of Steam. 1979-8212. Science Museum Group. The Progress of Steam. 1979-8212. Science Museum Group Collection Online. https://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co421078 [Accessed July 23, 2018]