Hanganu Denisa

Cultură și Civilizație Britanică

Anul 1 – UAV Arad

Culture of the United Kingdom

The culture of the United Kingdom is influenced by the UK's history as a developed island
country, a liberal democracy and a major power; its predominantly Christian religious life;
and its composition of four countries—England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—each
of which has distinct customs, cultures and symbolism. The wider culture of Europe has also
influenced British culture, and Humanism, Protestantism and representative democracy
developed from broader Western culture.
British literature, music, cinema, art, theatre, comedy, media, television, philosophy,
architecture and education are important aspects of British culture. The United Kingdom is
also prominent in science and technology, producing world-leading scientists (e.g. Isaac
Newton and Charles Darwin) and inventions. Sport is an important part of British culture;
numerous sports originated in the country, including football. The UK has been described as
a "cultural superpower", and London has been described as a world cultural capital.
The Industrial Revolution, which started in the UK, had a profound effect on the socio-
economic and cultural conditions of the world. As a result of the British Empire, significant
British influence can be observed in the language, law, culture and institutions of a
geographically wide assortment of countries, including Australia, Canada, India, the Republic
of Ireland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United States and
English speaking Caribbean nations. These states are sometimes collectively known as the
Anglosphere, and are among Britain's closest allies. In turn the empire also influenced British
culture, particularly British cuisine.
The cultures of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are diverse and have varying
degrees of overlap and distinctiveness.
For the history of the British Isles before the United Kingdom, see History of the British
Isles.
"UK History" redirects here. For the UKTV channel formerly known as UK History, see
Yesterday (TV channel).
The history of the United Kingdom as a unified sovereign state began in 1707 with the
political union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, into a united kingdom called Great
Britain. Of this new state the historian Simon Schama said:
What began as a hostile merger would end in a full partnership in the most powerful going
concern in the world... it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European
history.
The Act of Union 1800 added the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland.
The first decades were marked by Jacobite risings which ended with defeat for the Stuart
cause at Culloden in 1746. In 1763, victory in the Seven Years' War led to the growth of the
First British Empire. With the defeat by the United States, France and others in the War of
American Independence, Britain lost its 13 American colonies and rebuilt its second British
Empire based in Asia and Africa. As a result, the culture of the United Kingdom, and its
technological, political, constitutional, and linguistic influence, became worldwide.
In 1922, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty, most of Ireland seceded to become the Irish Free
State; a day later, Northern Ireland seceded from the Free State and returned to the United
Kingdom. In 1927 the United Kingdom changed its formal title to the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland,[3] usually shortened to Britain and (after 1945) to the
United Kingdom or UK.
In the Second World War, in which the Soviet Union, China and the US joined Britain as
Allied powers, Britain and its Empire fought a successful war against Germany, Italy and
Japan. The cost was high and Britain no longer had the wealth to maintain an empire, so it
granted independence to almost all its possessions. The new states typically joined the
Commonwealth of Nations.[4] Postwar years saw great hardships until prosperity returned in
the 1950s. meanwhile the Labour Party built a welfare state, nationalized many industries,
and created the National Health Service. The UK took a strong stand against Communist
expansion after 1945, playing a major role in the Cold War and the formation of NATO as an
anti-Soviet military alliance with West Germany, France the U.S. and smaller countries. The
United Kingdom has been a leading member of the United Nations since its founding. It
joined the European Union in 1973. Since the 1990s large-scale devolution movements in
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have changed the political structure of the country. The
Brexit referendum in 2016 committed the country to an exit from the European Union.
The Art of the United Kingdom refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with the
United Kingdom since the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. For earlier
periods, and some more detailed information on the post-1707 period, see English art,
Scottish art, Welsh art and Irish art. It is part of Western art history, and during the 18th
century Great Britain began once again to take the leading place England had in European art
during the Middle Ages, being especially strong in portraiture and landscape art. Increasing
British prosperity led to a greatly increased production of both fine art and the decorative arts,
the latter often being exported. The Romantic period produced the very diverse talents of
William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, John Constable and Samuel Palmer. The Victorian period
saw a great diversity of art, and a far larger quantity created than before. Much Victorian art
is now out of critical favour, with interest concentrated on the Pre-Raphaelites and the
innovative movements at the end of the 18th century.
The training of artists, which had long been weak, began to be improved by private and
government initiatives in the 18th century, and greatly expanded in the 19th, and public
exhibitions and later the opening of museums brought art to a wider public, especially in
London. In the 19th century publicly displayed religious art once again became popular, after
a virtual absence since the Reformation, and, as in other countries, movements such as the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Glasgow School contended with established Academic
art. The British contribution to early Modernist art was relatively small, but since World War
II British artists have made a considerable impact on Contemporary art, especially with
figurative work, and Britain remains a key centre of an increasingly globalized art world.
The oldest surviving British art includes Stonehenge from around 2600 BC, and tin and
gold works of art produced by the Beaker people from around 2150 BC. The La Tène style of
Celtic art reached the British Isles rather late, no earlier than about 400 BC, and developed a
particular "Insular Celtic" style seen in objects such as the Battersea Shield, and a number of
bronze mirror-backs decorated with intricate patterns of curves, spirals and trumpet-shapes.
Only in the British Isles can Celtic decorative style be seen to have survived throughout the
Roman period, as shown in objects like the Staffordshire Moorlands Pan and the resurgence
of Celtic motifs, now blended with Germanic interlace and Mediterranean elements, in
Christian Insular art. This had a brief but spectacular flowering in all the countries that now
form the United Kingdom in the 7th and 8th centuries, in works such as the Book of Kells
and Book of Lindisfarne. The Insular style was influential across Northern Europe, and
especially so in later Anglo-Saxon art, although this received new Continental influences.