Editing History painting (section)

==History painting and historical painting==	
[[File:Past and Present Number One.jpg|thumb|left|"No. 1, Misfortune" from [[Augustus Egg]]'s ''[[Past and Present (paintings)|Past and Present]]'', 1858. The husband has discovered his wife's infidelity. ''Prayer'' and ''Despair'' complete the set.]]

===The terms===
Initially, "history painting" and "historical painting" were used interchangeably in English, as when Sir [[Joshua Reynolds]] in his fourth ''Discourse'' uses both indiscriminately to cover "history painting", while saying "...it ought to be called poetical, as in reality it is", reflecting the French term ''peinture historique'', one equivalent of "history painting".  The terms began to separate in the 19th century, with "historical painting" becoming a sub-group of "history painting" restricted to subjects taken from history in its normal sense.  In 1853 [[John Ruskin]] asked his audience: "What do you at present ''mean'' by historical painting? Now-a-days it means the endeavour, by the power of imagination, to portray some historical event of past days."<ref>Lecture IV, p. 172, ''Lectures on Architecture and Painting: Delivered at Edinburgh, in November, 1853'', 1854, Wiley, [https://archive.org/details/lecturesonarchi02ruskgoog/page/n194 <!-- pg=172 quote="historical painting". --> Internet Archive].</ref>  So for example [[Harold Wethey]]'s three-volume catalogue of the paintings of [[Titian]] (Phaidon, 1969–75) is divided between "Religious Paintings", "Portraits", and "Mythological and Historical Paintings", though both volumes I and III cover what is included in the term "History Paintings".  This distinction is useful but is by no means generally observed, and the terms are still often used in a confusing manner. Because of the potential for confusion modern academic writing tends to avoid the phrase "historical painting", talking instead of "historical subject matter" in history painting, but where the phrase is still used in contemporary scholarship it will normally mean the painting of subjects from history, very often in the 19th century.<ref>As shown in the usages in Barlow, Strong, and Wright</ref>  "Historical painting" may also be used, especially in discussion of painting techniques in conservation studies, to mean "old", as opposed to modern or recent painting.<ref>As in "The beautifully renovated Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam will open its doors to the public in 2013. To celebrate this event the Rijksmuseum will host a three-day symposium on Historical Painting Techniques. The central theme of the symposium will be the technical study of historically used painting techniques, the historical painting materials, their origin and trade, and their application in the painter’s workshop." [https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/research-and-library/painting-techniques Rijksmuseum, "Painting Techniques - Call for Papers"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130531094855/https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/research-and-library/painting-techniques |date=2013-05-31 }}</ref>
	
In 19th-century British writing on art the terms "'''subject painting'''" or "anecdotic" painting were often used for works in a line of development going back to [[William Hogarth]] of monoscenic depictions of crucial moments in an implied narrative with unidentified characters,<ref>{{cite book|author=Pamela M. Fletcher|title=Narrating Modernity: The British Problem Picture, 1895-1914|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kvT_0aOkOSkC&pg=PA146|date=1 January 2003|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-0-7546-3568-0|page=146 note 12}}</ref> such as [[William Holman Hunt]]'s 1853 painting ''[[The Awakening Conscience]]'' or [[Augustus Egg]]'s ''[[Past and Present (paintings)|Past and Present]]'', a set of three paintings, updating sets by Hogarth such as ''[[Marriage à-la-mode (Hogarth)|Marriage à-la-mode]]''.

===19th century===
[[File:Richard Parkes Bonington - Henri III - WGA02429.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[Richard Parkes Bonington]], ''[[Henri III of France]]'', 1827–28, a small "Intimate Romantic" anecdotal scene from history]]
History painting was the dominant form of [[academic art|academic painting]] in the various national academies in the 18th century, and for most of the 19th, and  increasingly historical subjects dominated.  During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods the heroic treatment of contemporary history in a frankly propagandistic fashion by [[Antoine-Jean, Baron Gros]], [[Jacques-Louis David]], [[Carle Vernet]] and others was supported by the French state, but after the fall of Napoleon in 1815 the French governments were not regarded as suitable for heroic treatment and many artists retreated further into the past to find subjects, though in Britain depicting the victories of the [[Napoleonic Wars]] mostly occurred after they were over.  Another path was to choose contemporary subjects that were oppositional to government either at home and abroad, and many of what were arguably the last great generation of history paintings were protests at contemporary episodes of repression or outrages at home or abroad: [[Francisco Goya|Goya]]'s ''[[The Third of May 1808]]'' (1814), [[Théodore Géricault]]'s ''[[The Raft of the Medusa]]'' (1818–19), [[Eugène Delacroix]]'s ''[[The Massacre at Chios]]'' (1824) and ''[[Liberty Leading the People]]'' (1830).  These were heroic, but showed heroic suffering by ordinary civilians.
[[File:PAUL DELAROCHE - Ejecución de Lady Jane Grey (National Gallery de Londres, 1834).jpg|thumb|[[Paul Delaroche]], ''[[The Execution of Lady Jane Grey]]'', 1833, [[National Gallery]], London]]

[[File:Conversión del duque de Gandía, Museo del Prado.jpg|thumb|[[José Moreno Carbonero]], ''Conversion of the Duke of Gandía'', 1881, [[Museo del Prado]], Madrid]]
[[Romanticism|Romantic artists]] such as Géricault and Delacroix, and those from other movements such as the English [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]] continued to regard history painting as the ideal for their most ambitious works. Others such as [[Jan Matejko]] in Poland,<ref>(In Polish) [[Maciej Masłowski]]: Dzieje Polski w obrazach, [[Warsaw]] 1962, ed. by "Arkady Publishers"</ref> [[Vasily Surikov]] in Russia, [[José Moreno Carbonero]] in Spain and [[Paul Delaroche]] in France became specialized painters of large historical subjects.  The ''[[style troubadour]]'' ("[[troubadour]] style") was a somewhat derisive French term for earlier paintings of medieval and Renaissance scenes, which were often small and depicting moments of anecdote rather than drama; [[Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres|Ingres]], [[Richard Parkes Bonington]] and  [[Henri Jean-Baptiste Victoire Fradelle|Henri Fradelle]] painted such works. Sir [[Roy Strong]] calls this type of work the "Intimate Romantic", and in French it was known as the "peinture de genre historique" or "peinture anecdotique" ("historical genre painting" or "anecdotal painting").<ref>Strong, 36-40; Wright, 269-273, French terms on p. 269</ref>

Church commissions for large group scenes from the Bible had greatly reduced, and historical painting became very significant.  Especially in the early 19th century, much historical painting depicted specific moments from historical literature, with the novels of Sir [[Walter Scott]] a particular favourite, in France and other European countries as much as Great Britain.<ref>Wright, throughout; Strong, 30-32</ref>  By the middle of the century medieval scenes were expected to be very carefully researched, using the work of historians of costume, architecture and all elements of decor that were becoming available. An example of this is the extensive research of Byzantine architecture, clothing, and decoration made in Parisian museums and libraries by [[José Moreno Carbonero|Moreno Carbonero]] for his masterwork ''The Entry of Roger de Flor in Constantinople''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.artehistoria.com/es/obra/entrada-de-roger-de-flor-en-constantinopla|title=Entrada de Roger de Flor en Constantinopla {{!}} artehistoria.com|website=www.artehistoria.com|language=es|access-date=2018-11-16|archive-date=2018-11-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116173823/https://www.artehistoria.com/es/obra/entrada-de-roger-de-flor-en-constantinopla|url-status=dead}}</ref> The provision of examples and expertise for artists, as well as revivalist industrial designers, was one of the motivations for the establishment of museums like the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]] in London.<ref>Strong, 24-26, 47-73; Wright, 269-273</ref>

New techniques of [[printmaking]] such as the [[chromolithograph]] made good quality reproductions both relatively cheap and very widely accessible, and also hugely profitable for artist and publisher, as the sales were so large.<ref>Harding, 7-9</ref>  Historical painting often had a close relationship with [[Nationalism]], and painters like Matejko in Poland could play an important role in fixing the prevailing historical narrative of national history in the popular mind.<ref>Strong, 32-36</ref>  In France, ''[[L'art Pompier]]'' ("Fireman art") was a derisory term for official academic historical painting,<ref>Harding, throughout</ref> and in a final phase, "History painting of a debased sort, scenes of brutality and terror, purporting to illustrate episodes from Roman and Moorish history, were Salon sensations.  On the overcrowded walls of the exhibition galleries, the paintings that shouted loudest got the attention".<ref>White, 91</ref>  [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] painting was an alternative genre that offered similar exotic costumes and decor, and at least as much opportunity to depict sex and violence.