Theresa Thompson enjoys artists’ views of Britain, two centuries apart

From the north bank of the Thames, on the terrace of Somerset House, we can look in either direction. To the east, the City of London and the new St Paul’s Cathedral proud above a forest of spires piercing the skyline. To the west, Westminster, the Abbey’s shining new west towers and the new bridge, a feat of engineering admired by all.

It is 1750-1 and Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto, has turned his easel around, a switch of perspective, allowing us to admire the “ferment of activity” that was London.

The two immaculate paintings, unfettered by glass, are among several loans from the Queen’s collection displayed in Compton Verney’s Canaletto: Celebrating Britain.

Canaletto is so familiar from his grand Venetian paintings of glitteringly smooth canals backed by romantic buildings that it is wonderful to see his views of Britain from the nine years he spent here, from 1746 to 1755.

A spirit of optimism ran high in Britain at the time. Canaletto had left his native Venice as war in Europe dried up demand from well-off Grand Tourists.

In Britain, he found “a newly confident nation” at peace with France, the Jacobite threat over, enjoying an economic boom, says show curator Dr Steven Parissien, Compton Verney’s director.

“Britain was the new Venice,” says Parissien, an architectural historian.

He was celebrating a buoyant Britain, where everything was new or about to be built, painting it as perhaps only an outsider could in a time of change.

Highlights include a huge view of the Old Horse Guards from St James’s Park, loaned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, hung alongside the New Horse Guards from St James’s Park, done three years later.

Magnificent as they are, it’s fun to see how Canaletto re-uses figures; a portly, red-waistcoated gentleman, still talking to his companion and a man with a cane a few paces further on.

The show includes homages to Canaletto from British artists William Marlow and Samuel Scott, plus a few Venetian paintings for context.

In what might seem an unlikely pairing, the Canalettos are accompanied by a British photographer’s views of a Yorkshire mill town from the 1970s.

The Non-Conformists: Photographs by Martin Parr shows 75 black and white images by the Magnum photographer between 1975 and 1979 in Hebden Bridge and the Calder Valley.

“Like the Canaletto show, it links to the sense of Britain, identity and traditions. We haven’t had a photography show like this before at Compton Verney,” says curator Penny Sexton. “Parr is a satirical and anthropological photographer.”

From street to factory, gamekeepers to chapel-goers, from people queuing to see Jaws or jostling at the Mayor’s buffet to the AGM of the Ancient Order of Hen-Pecked Husbands, these are remarkable photos. Some make you laugh, some make you wonder. An unmissable portrait of Englishness.

In the grounds, Faye Claridge’s Kern Baby, a 5m tall corn dolly, offers another look at identity and tradition. It is based on dolls decorated for harvest festivals.

Canaletto: Celebrating Britain & The Non-Conformists: Photographs by Martin Parr
Compton Verney, near Banbury
Canaletto’s masterpiece, A Regatta on the Grand Canal (c1740), is also on show, from May 9 to June 21,
Until June 7 comptonverney.org.uk