Rain, Steam, and Speed - painting by Turner, 1844

The UK is famous for its painting, literature, theatre, and architecture.

John Constable (1776-1837) is ranked with Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) as one of the greatest British landscape artists. Constable painted traditional rural scenes in oils. Part of the Suffolk countryside alongside the River Stour is known as Constable country because it is so closely associated with his paintings.

One of the UK’s most well-known contemporary artists is Chris Ofili, who is notorious for putting lumps of elephant dung in his paintings. His paintings use colour, resin, and glitter, as well as icons of modern policitical and musical black celebrities. The origin of his method derives from the ancient cave paintings of the Matopos Hills in Zimbabwe, which Ofili discovered while studying there. In one of Chris' paintings, "Two Doo Voodoo", you can see the heads of Nelson Mandela, Snoop Doggy Dog, Mike Tyson and Tupac Shakur blooming out of the flowers of a plant motif. Chris won the 1998 Turner Prize.

The Eisteddfodau are traditional Welsh festivals, which originally featured a contest involving poetry and music, but are now a general celebration of Welsh arts and culture. Welsh lovespoons are carved from wood and have intricate handles. In the 17th century they were carved by village men to give to the women they had fallen in love with.

Born in Stratford upon Avon in 1564, William Shakespeare is arguably the most well-known writer in the English language. The Royal Shakespeare Company is based in Stratford upon Avon, and tours the country staging plays by Shakespeare and other writers. The Reduced Shakespeare Company is a group of actors who perform all 37 plays in 97 minutes.

Television soap operas are very popular in the UK. Two well-known soaps include EastEnders, which is filmed in the East End of London, and Coronation Street, which is set in a street in Manchester. The radio is also popular, and the longest running show, called Desert Island Discs, features a celebrity who chooses their favourite music and talks about what they would do if they were stranded on a deserted island.

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Image supplied by Mark Harden