What Was History Painting And What Is It Now

The dominant visual language of European painting from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, history paintings were formidable in their monumental scale, ambitious moral lessons, and intricate narratives. With the rise of modernist avant-gardes, the genre receded from the forefront of artistic production into the realm of nostalgia. Yet history painting cast a shadow that would subtly colour even the works that sought to displace it. Exploring the resilience of this distinctive mode of visual representation, What Was History Painting and What Is It Now? brings together an internationally distinguished group of scholars to trace the endurance, adaptation, and mutation of history painting. These studies offer a reexamination of the fortunes of the genre from North America to Europe and Africa. Organized around illuminating themes, the book explores the creation of an audience attuned to the genre's didactic aims, the entry of history painting into the marketplace of commercial art and attractions, and the reimagination of the mode in response to the edicts of modern and contemporary art. Spanning the full range and diversity of history painting, this collection is a broad reconsideration of the tradition and the vibrant ways in which it resonates through the art of the present.

Bridging the fields of conservation, art history, and museum curating, this volume contains the principal papers from an international symposium titled "Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice" at the University of Leiden in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from June 26 to 29, 1995. The symposium—designed for art historians, conservators, conservation scientists, and museum curators worldwide—was organized by the Department of Art History at the University of Leiden and the Art History Department of the Central Research Laboratory for Objects of Art and Science in Amsterdam. Twenty-five contributors representing museums and conservation institutions throughout the world provide recent research on historical painting techniques, including wall painting and polychrome sculpture. Topics cover the latest art historical research and scientific analyses of original techniques and materials, as well as historical sources, such as medieval treatises and descriptions of painting techniques in historical literature. Chapters include the painting methods of Rembrandt and Vermeer, Dutch 17th-century landscape painting, wall paintings in English churches, Chinese paintings on paper and canvas, and Tibetan thangkas. Color plates and black-and-white photographs illustrate works from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.

This handsomely illustrated volume traces the intersections of art history and paintings restoration in nineteenth-century Europe. Repairing works of art and writing about them—the practices that became art conservation and art history—share a common ancestry. By the nineteenth century the two fields had become inseparably linked. While the art historical scholarship of this period has been widely studied, its restoration practices have received less scrutiny—until now. This book charts the intersections between art history and conservation in the treatment of Italian Renaissance paintings in nineteenth-century Europe. Initial chapters discuss the restoration of works by Giotto and Titian framed by the contemporary scholarship of art historians such as Jacob Burckhardt, G. B. Cavalcaselle, and Joseph Crowe that was redefining the earlier age. Subsequent chapters recount how paintings conservation was integrated into museum settings. The narrative uses period texts, unpublished archival materials, and historical photographs in probing how paintings looked at a time when scholars were writing the foundational texts of art history, and how contemporary restorers were negotiating the appearances of these works. The book proposes a model for a new conservation history, object-focused yet enriched by consideration of a wider cultural horizon.

"Explores history painting in the United States during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, as exemplified by Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851). Includes the work of artists such as Daniel Huntington, Lilly Martin Spencer, and Eastman Johnson"--Provided by publisher.

Painting is a continually expanding and evolving form of creative expression. The radical changes in the medium that took place in the 1960s and 70s - the period that saw the shift from a modernist to a postmodernist visual language - have led to painting's continued energy and diversity. Suzanne Hudson provides an intelligent and original survey of contemporary painting - a critical snapshot that brings together more than 200 artists from around the world who are defining the painterly ideas and aesthetics of our time. A contextual introduction maps out the history of painting in the modern and postmodern eras, followed by six chapters that explores the themes of appropriation, attitude, production and distribution, the body, painting about painting, and painters who introduce performance, installation and textiles into their work to critique painting itself. Compellingly argued and beautifully illustrated, Painting Now is an invaluable primer on the state of painting today.

Whether as a reaction to our technological present or as a manifestation of fears concerning our environmental future, depictions of the natural world in painting have never seemed more pertinent or urgent. Some of the most ambitious, crucial and intellectually vibrant paintings being created in this century involve the landscape - from a more traditional, perceptual based approach for rendering vistas to a looser, topography-inspired gestural abstraction that blurs the line between form and space, to many other modes in between. Surprisingly, there has not been an ambitious and wide-reaching publication on the subject - until now. The result of several years' worth of research, Landscape Painting Now is the first book to explore the very best contemporary landscape painting. Featuring artists from nearly twenty-five countries born over seven decades, it includes some of the brightest stars of the contemporary art world. It is introduced by an essay from Barry Schwabsky, who discusses the history of landscape painting, exploring how the genre developed through the 20th century to today, and how it has become increasingly relevant to art now. He also explores the notion of what is actually called a landscape painting today, and looks to expand beyond commonly held preconceptions concerning the genre.

From the glories of the High Renaissance in Italy to the emotional visions of the Romantics, and from the groundbreaking techniques of the Impressionists to the radical canvases of the Abstract Expressionists, this book provides a fascinating look at the major movements in the history of Western painting. A clear chronological structure allows the reader to see each movement in its historical context and to appreciate the patterns that emerge. The historical framework shows the extent to which the powers of royalty, religion, and revolution have exerted their influence in the artistic sphere.

Addressed to students of the image—both art historians and students of visual studies—this book investigates the history and nature of time in a variety of different environments and media as well as the temporal potential of objects. Essays will analyze such topics as the disparities of power that privilege certain forms of temporality above others, the nature of temporal duration in different cultures, the time of materials, the creation of pictorial narrative, and the recognition of anachrony as a form of historical interpretation.