The changing role of English scenic artists

This paper surveys the changing role and status of painters who painted cloth for scenery beginning with painters in the service of King Henry III (1216–1272), commissioned to paint both portraits and pageant banners. It traces the development of the guilds, the King’s Painters and the King’s Serjeant Painters who painted cloths for court events including pageants and masques over a 300-year period. It charts the subsequent move towards specialized scenic artists in the seventeenth century, once the theatre had been established outside the court, and the eventual split between artist and designer in the twentieth century. The research into scenic art, of which this survey forms a part, has begun to establish the scope of comparative documentary material and extant cloths, with the long-term objective of exploring how working in the two different contexts of scenic and fine art influence the practices and creative output of the artist