In previous centuries human life took place in the street more than it does now. But in the Italian Renaissance urban streets are usually a display of formal and sophisticated architecture, when in northern European art they are often the setting for lively markets and social interaction, even misbehaviour.
Over time formal architecture took over fashionable cities and resorts in the north, and the southern middle classes became more interested in the life of their times.
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Streets in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are the location for the familiar and the dramatic, as seen in much of Hogarth’s work, in view-painters’ expensive souvenirs and the gas-lit streets of Atkinson Grimshaw. Ford Madox Brown’s Work is perhaps the prime example.
Artworks
WorkFord Madox Brown (1821–1893)
Birmingham Museums Trust
The Cooling Tower, Portwood, Stockport, CheshireHarry Kingsley (1914–1998)
Stockport Heritage Services
Eastgate Street, ChesterAnton Dolders (b.1971)
Grosvenor Museum
Little Shops at the Top of Church Street, 1930John Vicat Cole (1903–1975)
Kensington Central Library
Grainger Street, Newcastle upon TyneLouis Hubbard Grimshaw (1870–1944)
Laing Art Gallery
Sloane SquareMichael d'Aguilar (1922–2011)
Kensington Central Library
Ladbroke Square, April 1978Sheila Hawkins (1905–1999)