Recommended e-Resources - Group 6 - The Arts

The information below relates to documents that are available from the ISD e-Resources. They have been carefully selected by your teachers and the LRC staff. Scroll through the list to find documents that are relevant to your current studies.

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History Painting

History painting.The depiction of several persons engaged in an important or memorable action, usually taken from a written source: a sense that stems from Leon Battista Alberti’s use of the word historia (Lat.: ‘story’) in 1435 to describe a narrative picture with many figures. The way in which understandings of this term developed in 15th- and 16th-century Italy is discussed in ISTORIA. As the term was understood in the academic doctrines of the 17th and 18th centuries, the action depicted might equally be one of factual record or of fable. Thus defined, history painting could include religious themes, or depictions of momentous recent events, but the term was most frequently associated with Classical subject-matter. This type of work was seen as the most demanding and exalted type of painting, the form most conducive to public edification. As such it was claimed to be subject to various requirements of decorum (see GRAND MANNER)—notably the use of a generalizing uniform of Classical dress, distinguishing it from GENRE painting, the depiction of the particularities of everyday life. These standards, formulated by theorists such as Joshua Reynolds, gave way in the late 18th century as the aims of history painters started to include many aspects of genre. Much of the 19th-century history painting following this convergence deals with ‘history’ in the modern sense, that is, with the exploration of the past for its own particular qualities. Thus the later history of the form concerns a substantially altered concept.

AVAILABLE AT: Grove Art Online

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