Talk:History painting

message: Cut from the page as irrelevant.
These "history paintings," as they were called, demonstrate how profoundly painters, actors, directors and critics influenced one another and how interdependent they were in their critical interpretations, depictions and productions of Shakespeare's plays. In the nineteenth century the relationship between literature and the graphic arts was much closer and the definition of "literary" criticism was broader than it is now. A critic like John Eagles blurs most of our modern distinctions when he says of Daniel Maclise's painting The Play Scene in "Hamlet" (1842) that "It is the business of the dramatist to make good pictures, and whether it be done by the players or the painter, what matter, so they be effective, and the story worth telling; and how shall they be better told than as the author intended they should be represented? The boards of the theatre and the canvass are the same thing--the eye is to behold, and the mind to be moved."
This strikes me as entirely off-topic.  The assertion in the opening paragraph is rather weak; I have never heard paintings based on Shakespeare's works called history paintings.  Goldfritha 19:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They were in fact classed as history paintings. Johnbod (talk) 13:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: from the page

message: If the term "history painting" included religious and all the other categories listed here, what meaning would it have?  This article has no meaning as currently written. Wduncan43 (talk) 13:25, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Improved/clarified I hope, but the article is still pretty poor. Johnbod (talk) 13:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A second to other comments 

message: I have been trying to clean up the Military art article. This source points to historical war art as being a subtype of History painting. I can find no clear reference or definition for "Military art" other than that and it seems to me "Military art" should simply be merged into this article. Other views? Ohioartdude2 (talk) 04:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Military art

message: "Ambition" is not a defining factor of what is or isn't "history painting". While later history paintings often tend to go for the large-scale mass-scenes, adding "ambition" to the definition of the genre excludes way too many works, especially many of the older religious and allegorical works which are clearly included in the genre. A work like :File:Cimabue - Flagellation.jpg fits perfectly in the definition of "history painting", but can hardly be called ambitious (or certainly not more ambitious than portraits, landscapes, genre paintings, ...). I have therefor excluded it again from the introduction of the article. Fram (talk) 07:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Cimabue was was working before the concept of "history painting" existed. A painting of the Flagellation retrospectively fits the definition because of its topic, but he would not have had a concept that this topic was essentially different from many others, or rather that it required a different approach to pictorial construction. Once the Albertian model is established you then do have the concept of History Painting which introduces the notion that creative ambition is a factor. Paul B (talk) 10:01, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there any genre of painting (as an art) where "ambition" is not a factor though? How is "ambition" a factor in history painting, but not in e.g. genre painting? How is :File:Colyn de Coter - The Descent from the Cross - Google Art Project.jpg defined by "ambition"? What genre would you put reliigious or "true" historical paintings (thematically) in that lack the "ambition" supposedly needed to define the genre? I fail to see which pictures fit the definition wrt subject matter, but get excluded from the category, the genre anyway because they lack "ambition"? Icons perhaps, in a way, but Western paintings? Fram (talk) 10:12, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

text: Pages 7-8 of Green & Seddon (available on google books) are a longer summary than the 2 Nat Galleries of the meaning of "history painting". They address the periods of works the term should properly be applied to, the physical size of works, and the "ambition" that was a necessary part of the tradition. The term is not normally applied retrospectively, and Cimabue's small predella panel would not normally be included in the scope of the term though clearly the medieval development of narrative painting was the essential precursor to the later tradition. Also relevant: NG London glossary (as cited): "History painting was viewed as the most important of the genres from about the 16th century, and the climax of an academic painter's training. It was the equivalent of Epic or Tragedy in literature".  NG Washington (as cited): "Sophisticated Europeans from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries deemed “history painting” to be the supreme achievement in the visual arts". Similar refs are easy to find.  Johnbod (talk) 11:35, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope you can understand the difference between how something is viewed, and how it is defined? The 100m sprint is seen asa the Queen of grack and field disciplines, but that aspect of it is not a part of the definition of a 100m sprint; you'll also notice that "ambition" doesn't factor in the definitions of "epic" or "tragedy", or in the definition of "opera", or in any crowning discipline. Puns are often considered the lowest form of humor, but you don't define a pun by ranking it. Fram (talk) 11:45, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, you think that ""ambition" doesn't factor in the definitions of "epic" or "tragedy", or in the definition of "opera", or in any crowning discipline"? That's a novel view, I'd say. This google books search on "history painting" + "ambition" is instructive: . Johnbod (talk) 11:47, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: yes, very instructive: the very first links returned by that Google search discuss "ambitious history painting", which would be rather pleonastic in your definition, since there "ambitious" is an integral aspect of "history painting" already. Fram (talk) 12:09, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambition 

message: *p109 Johnbod (talk) 12:49, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Links for later

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thread_title:  External links modified