The highest standards of the arts and architecture all flourished under the patronage of the King, although drama slipped from the previous Shakespearean age. All the arts were greatly impacted by the enormous political and religious controversies, and the degree to which they were themselves influential is a matter of ongoing debate among scholars.
Patrick Collinson argues that an emerging Puritan community was highly suspicious of the fine arts.
Edward Chaney argues that Catholic patrons and professionals were quite numerous and greatly influenced the direction of the arts.
Poetry The Caroline period saw the flourishing of the
cavalier poets (including
Thomas Carew,
Richard Lovelace, and
John Suckling) and the
metaphysical poets (including
George Herbert,
Henry Vaughan,
Katherine Philips), movements that produced figures like
John Donne,
Robert Herrick and
John Milton. Cavalier poetry differs from traditional poetry in subject matter. Instead of tackling issues such as religion, philosophy and the arts, cavalier poetry aims to express the joys and celebrations in a much livelier way than did its predecessors. The intent was often to promote the crown, and they often spoke outwardly against the Roundheads. Most cavalier works had allegorical or classical references, drawing on knowledge of Horace, Cicero, and Ovid. By using these resources they were able to produce poetry that impressed King Charles I. The cavalier poets strove to create poetry where both pleasure and virtue thrived. They were rich in reference to the ancients, and most poems "celebrate beauty, love, nature, sensuality, drinking, good fellowship, honor, and social life". Cavalier poets wrote in a way that promoted seizing the day and the opportunities presented to them and their kinsmen. They wanted to revel in society and come to be the best that they possibly could within the bounds of that society. Living life to the fullest, for cavalier writers, often included gaining material wealth and having sex with women. These themes contributed to the triumphant and boisterous tone and attitude of the poetry. Platonic love was also another characteristic of cavalier poetry, where the man would show his divine love for a woman, and where she would be worshipped as a creature of perfection.
George Wither (1588–1667) was a prolific poet, pamphleteer, satirist and writer of hymns. He is best known for "Britain's Remembrancer" of 1625, with its wide range of contemporary topics including the plague and politics. It reflects on nature of poetry and prophecy, explores the fault lines in politics, and rejects tyranny of the sort the king was denounced for fostering. It warns about the wickedness of the times and prophesizes that disasters are about to befall the kingdom.
Theatre and her court dwarf, by
Anthony van Dyck. Her Catholicism and extravagance made her generally unpopular Caroline theatre unquestionably saw a falling-off after the peak achievements of
William Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson, though some of their successors, especially
Philip Massinger,
James Shirley, and
John Ford, carried on to create interesting, even compelling theatre. In recent years the comedies of
Richard Brome have gained in critical recognition. The peculiar artistic form of the court
masque was still being written and performed. A masque involved music and dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate
stage design, in which the architectural framing and costumes might be designed by a renowned architect, often
Inigo Jones, to present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron. Professional actors and musicians were hired for the speaking and singing parts. Often those acting, who did not speak or sing, were courtiers. In a strong contrast to Jacobean and
Elizabethan theatre, seen by a very wide public, these were private performances in houses or palaces for a small court audience. The lavish expenditures on these showpiece masques – the production of a single masque could approach £15,000 – was one of a growing number of grievances that critics in general, and the Parliamentarians in particular, held against the King and his court. The conventional theatre in London also continued the Jacobean trend of moving to smaller, more intimate, but also more expensive venues, performing in front of a much narrower social range. The only new London theatre in the reign seems to have been the
Salisbury Court Theatre, open from 1629 until the
closing of the theatres in 1642. Sir
Henry Herbert as (in theory) deputy
Master of the Revels, was a dominant figure, in the 1630s often causing trouble for the two leading companies, the
King's Men, whose patronage Charles had inherited from his father, and
Queen Henrietta's Men, formed in 1625, partly from earlier companies under the patronage of Charles' mother and sister. The theatres were closed for a long time because of
plague in 1638–39, although after the
Long Parliament officially closed them for good in 1642, private performances continued, and at some periods public ones. In other forms of literature, and especially in drama, the Caroline period was a diminished continuation of the trends of the previous two reigns. In the specialized domain of literary criticism and theory,
Henry Reynolds'
Mythomystes was published in 1632, in which the author attempts a systematic application of
Neoplatonism to poetry. The result has been characterized as "a tropical forest of strange fancies" and "perversities of taste."
Painting Charles I can be compared to King Henry VIII and King George III as a highly influential royal collector; he was by far the keenest collector of art of all the Stuart kings. He saw painting as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. His collection reflected his aesthetic tastes, which contrasted with the systematic acquisition of a wide range of objects that was typical of contemporary German and Habsburg princes. By his death, he had amassed about 1,760 paintings, including works by
Titian,
Raphael and
Correggio among others. Charles commissioned the ceiling of the
Banqueting House, Whitehall from
Rubens and paintings by artists from the Low Countries such as
Gerard van Honthorst and
Daniel Mytens. In 1628, he bought the collection that the
Duke of Mantua was forced to sell. In 1632, the peripatetic king visited Spain, where he sat for a portrait by
Diego Velázquez, although the picture is now lost. As king he worked to entice leading foreign painters to London for longer or shorter spells. In 1626, he was able to persuade
Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by his daughter
Artemisia and some of his sons. Rubens was a particular target: eventually in 1630 he came on a diplomatic mission that included painting, and he later sent Charles more paintings from Antwerp. Rubens was very well treated during his nine-month visit, during which he was knighted. Charles's court portraitist was
Daniël Mijtens.
Van Dyck '', c. 1637–38. One of several works depicting Charles riding a horse as a means to increase his stature.
Anthony van Dyck (appointed "painter to the king," 1633–1641) was a dominant influence. Often in Antwerp, but closely in touch with the English court, he assisted King Charles's agents in their search for pictures. Van Dyck also sent back some of his own works and had painted Charles's sister,
Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, at
The Hague in 1632. Van Dyck was knighted and given a pension of £200 a year, in a grant in which he was described as
principalle Paynter in ordinary to their majesties. Van Dyck undertook a large series of portraits of the King and
Queen Henrietta Maria, as well as their children and some courtiers. Many were completed in several versions and used as diplomatic gifts or given to supporters of the increasingly embattled king. Van Dyck's subjects appear relaxed and elegant but with an overarching air of authority, a tone that dominated English portrait painting until the end of the 18th century. Many of the portraits have lush landscape backgrounds. His portraits of Charles on horseback updated the grandeur of Titian's Emperor Charles V, but even more effective and original is his portrait in the
Louvre of Charles dismounted: "Charles is given a totally natural look of instinctive sovereignty, in a deliberately informal setting where he strolls so negligently that he seems at first glance nature's gentleman rather than England's King". Although he established the classic "
Cavalier" style and dress, a majority of his most important patrons took the
Parliamentarian side in the
English Civil War that broke out soon after his death.
Architecture in
Wiltshire by
Inigo Jones and
Isaac de Caus in central London, designed by Inigo Jones (1631) The Classical architecture popular in Italy and France was introduced to Britain during the Caroline era; until then
Renaissance architecture had largely passed Britain by. The style arrived in the form of
Palladianism, the most influential pioneer of the style was the Englishman
Inigo Jones. Jones travelled throughout Italy with the 'Collector' Earl of Arundel, annotating his copy of Palladio's treatise, in 1613–1614. The "Palladianism" of Jones and his contemporaries and later followers was a style largely of facades, and the mathematical formulae dictating layout were not strictly applied. A handful of great country houses in England built between 1640 and 1680, such as
Wilton House, are in this Palladian style. These follow the success of Jones' Palladian designs for the
Queen's House at
Greenwich and the
Banqueting House at
Whitehall (the residence of English monarchy from 1530 to 1698), and the uncompleted royal palace in London of Charles I. in west London (1638) Jones's
St Paul's, Covent Garden (1631) was the first completely new English church since the Reformation, and an imposing transcription of the
Tuscan order as described by
Vitruvius – in effect Early Roman or
Etruscan architecture. Possibly "nowhere in Europe had this literal primitivism been attempted", according to Sir
John Summerson. Jones was a figure of the court, and most commissions for large houses during the reign were built in a style for which Summerson's name "
Artisan Mannerism" has been widely accepted. This was a development of
Jacobean architecture led by a group of mostly London-based craftsmen still active in their
guilds (called
livery companies in London). Often the names of the architects or designers are uncertain, and often the main building contractor played a large part in the design. The most prominent of these, and also the leading native sculptor of the period, was the
stonemason Nicholas Stone, who also worked with Inigo Jones. John Jackson (d. 1663) was based in
Oxford, and made additions to various colleges there. The owner of
Swakeleys House (1638), now on the edge of London, was a merchant who became
Lord Mayor of London in 1640, and the house shows "what a gulf there was between the taste of the Court and that of
the City." It features prominently the fancy quasi-classical
gable ends that were a mark of the style. Other houses from the 1630s in the style are the "Dutch House", as it was known, now
Kew Palace,
Broome Park in
Kent,
Barnham Court in
West Sussex,
West Horsley Place and Slyfield Manor, the last two near
Guildford. These are mainly in brick, apart from stone or wood
mullions. The interiors often show a riot of decoration, as carpenters and
stuccoists were given their head.
Raynham Hall in
Norfolk (1630s), where the origins of the design have been much discussed, also features large and proud gable ends, but in a far more restrained fashion, that reflects Italian influence, by whatever route it came. Following the execution of Charles I, the Palladian designs advocated by Inigo Jones were too closely associated with the court of the late king to survive the turmoil of the Civil War. Following the
Stuart restoration, Jones's Palladianism was eclipsed by the
Baroque designs of such architects as
William Talman and Sir
John Vanbrugh,
Nicholas Hawksmoor, and even Jones' pupil
John Webb. ==Science==