The real Britannia

Exhibition reveals how the UK emerged into the modern era over 300 years, Lin Qi reports.

A display of 80 works of art is far from enough to summarize the diversity and complexity of British art since the Industrial Revolution. It's enlightening, however, as each item gives "a glimpse of particular preoccupation on the part of the artist", says Christopher Newall, art historian and co-curator of the exhibition Towards Modernity: Three Centuries of British Art.

"We intend to integrate those works as clues to the British mentality, British culture in a larger sense than just in the terms of artistic development," he says.