Wagner had been an enthusiast for the 1848 revolutions and had been an active participant in the Dresden Revolution of 1849, as a consequence of which he was forced to live for many years in exile from Germany. "Art and Revolution" was one of a group of polemical articles he published in his exile. His enthusiasm for such writing at this stage of his career is in part explained by his inability, in exile, to have his operas produced. But it was also an opportunity for him to express and justify his deep-seated concerns about the true nature of opera as music drama at a time when he was beginning to write his libretti for his Ring cycle, and turning his thoughts to the type of music it would require. This was quite different from the music of popular grand operas of the period, which Wagner believed were a sell-out to commercialism in the arts. "Art and Revolution" therefore explained his ideals in the context of the failure of the 1848 revolutions to bring about a society like that which Wagner conceived to have existed in Ancient Greece—truly dedicated to, and which could be morally sustained by, the arts—which for Wagner meant, supremely, his conception of drama.