Here is a taster of some of the new paintings that you can now look at online:

With extra galleries represented from Essex, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Norfolk, Dorset and much more, it may be that one of them is near you. Start searching for your region’s paintings here.

If your region is not there, then do check back on the site over the next couple of months. We'll be releasing new paintings regularly, as they are digitised by our partners the Public Catalogue Foundation.

(Also, for those of you who have previously used the site, you'll see that we've now split Sussex into West Sussex and East Sussex, and Yorkshire into North Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.)

This video tells the story of 8 of these paintings, and the galleries and collections that house them. 

Not all 8 paintings are on the Your Paintings site yet, but here's a list of all of them, with links to the ones that you can take a closer look at already:

• The  triptych altar-piece - The Ascension of Christ, The Sealing of the Sepulchre and The Three Marys at the Tomb William Hogarth
• A Quiet Corner in London by C. A. Forby
• Kinnaird Head by J. Birnie
• The Spirit of Aerial Combat by Peter C. Sander
• Venice by William Wyld
• John Ivory Talbot by Michael Dahl
• Mrs Randolph Schwabe by Augustus Edwin John
• Blossom sun and mist, Chipperfield, Hertfordshire by Lucien Pissarro

(For those of you who have been following our progress since launch, you may notice that this is the same video we linked to then. We make no apology for doing it again though! We think it sums up the ambition of the project very well - let us know if you agree).

In each episode, Waldemar uncovers the surprising truth about this seemingly familiar art movement and reminds us how truly revolutionary it was.

If you can't wait, find out more from Waldemar's brand new guided tour of cherry picked Impressionist paintings from the nation's art collection.

"There are a large number of Impressionist pictures in Britain and I've picked out a few that I'd like to talk about."

Do you know obscure facts about Impressionists that you would like to share? Are there other Impressionist paintings from the collection that you particularly love.

Exclusive to Your Paintings, James Fox narrates a guided tour that uses some of the most interesting paintings in the nation’s art collection to tell a story of 20th century Britain. Along the way, we find out how artists were influenced by British society and how in turn they aimed to influence it.

" I've selected brilliant paintings that I think are not only great examples of twentieth century British art, but they tell a story of twentieth century Britain as well"

What do you think of this take on 20th century Britain? Are there other paintings that you think tell the story as well, or better? And do you agree with what James Fox argues in his BBC Four series - that art historians of the future will rank British paintings in this period alongside the Golden Ages of Renaissance Italy and Impressionist France.

You can also read more in James Fox's latest BBC TV blog post, 'British Masters: My one big chance to get even'.

Half of them are from the Imperial War Museum, which has the most comprehensive collection of 20th century war paintings in the UK, but we've also uncovered some striking pictures from other museums around the country.

The first picture in this selection was painted in 1913, a year before the start of the First World War. It shows the peaceful fields and trees, that just three years later would be transformed into a hellish fighting ground. There is something eerily prescient about its title.

The Long Road to the Somme (Evelyn Anne Woodroffe-Hicks, 1913, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum)

The battle began on July 1st 1916, when Allied forces led by Britain attempted to overrun a 15 mile long stretch of German trenches, near the River Somme in North Eastern France. Despite heavy shelling by the Allies in the days before the battle, the German defences remained largely intact. Even worse, the bombardment created large craters that made it harder for Allied troops to reach the German trenches. The artist William Orpen painted the following picture, and many others that captured the physical scarring of the Somme.

The British Commander, General Douglas Haig, thought that the shelling would have weakened the Germans, and the battle would be short and decisive. His troops soon found out that the plan had failed. The taking of every town and feature, resulted in days of fighting and heavy casualties. Trones Wood was one of these - a strategic point outside a small town that the Allies needed to take to make progress. Eventually after two days of fierce fighting, the British 18th and 30th divisions managed to capture the wood.

Another closely fought encounter was at Mametz Wood, where the 38th Welsh Division fought hand to hand with the Germans. The fighting was so intense, that veterans recalled the soldiers crying in each other’s faces. The poet Robert Graves fought at Mametz Wood, and wrote:  ‘It was full of dead Prussian Guards, big men, and dead Royal Welch Fusiliers and South Wales Borderers, little men. Not a single tree in the wood remained unbroken.’

(You can hear Dan Snow talk about this painting in his Guided Tour of the nation's art collection: The Art of War)

In September 1916 at the Somme, tanks were used for the first time in history. Despite the surprise element, they provided little help. Many of them were faulty and inefficient, and were left broken down on the battlefield.

The number of casualties was unprecedented. On July 1, the first day of the battle, over 19,000 British soldiers were killed. By the time the Battle of the Somme ended, there were over a million casualties on both sides, with over 300,000 killed or missing.

The soldiers had volunteered with dreams of returning home victorious and full of adventure stories. Those who came back were scarred for life. Here we see the wounded silently escorted out of Charing Cross station, in a very different atmosphere to the one they left in.

After over four months fighting, the battle ended. Neither side had made a significant breakthrough. The Battle of the Somme has come to stand for the horrific slaughter and stalemate that characterised so much of the fighting in the First World War.

This article was corrected on 04/07/11 after comments by WFA Web Editor.