2 - The Stranger-Painters

Summary

Stranger-painters never comprised the majority of those who painted in England. Yet their influential presence from well back in time, as well as the broad xenophobia with which they were often received, serve as underlying themes to the painters’ occupation. As we’ve seen, the evidence of their work through the fifteenth century and well into the Tudor era suggests that their comings and goings over time were casual, frequent, and relatively unobstructed. But several events in and around the decade of the 1540s turned a page on that long-standing phase of foreign involvement, while shifts in religion and foreign policy under Elizabeth continued to move English visual culture in new directions. Finally, events at the opening of the seventeenth century in both England and abroad ushered in yet another phase of the strangers’ presence in the painters’ trade: one which endured into the Civil War years and, to some extent, beyond.

The dissolution of monasteries and chantries, beginning in the mid-1530s and extending into the 1540s, effectively undermined much of the ecclesiastical patronage which had supported the lively visual display of pre-Reformation times. A wave of even more vigorous iconoclasm and visual austerity followed under Edward VI. These events weighed heavily on painters of all stripe, speciality, and origin. For the stranger-painters feasting on English patronage, these years brought an additional threat. The continual popular resentment of immigrants in general and immigrant artisans and tradesmen in particular, bolstered by the fear of a French invasion in 1539, reached a climactic moment with legislation in 1540. The Act Concerning Strangers of that year (32 Henry VIII, c.16) restated legislative restrictions placed on foreigners extending back to the reign of Richard III, and called for their more vigorous enforcement. Most importantly, it distinguished between those strangers who had received letters of denization from the Crown and those who had not, placing severe restrictions on the economic activities of the latter. The former were still barred from taking on other strangers as apprentices, were limited to the employment of two journeymen strangers each, and were obliged to pay taxes at a higher rate. But they were allowed to take long-term leases, set up workshops, and enjoy many of the other benefits accruing to native-born Englishmen.