Napoleons Farewell To
Josephine by the British painter Laslett John Pott (1837-1898).
Normally Pott was more specialized in military scenes but here he
depicted the great hero on a romantic battlefield.
Is this farewell the normal separation caused by Napoleon going off to one battle field or another? Or is this the Big and Final Farewell, when Napoleon was going off to marry another woman?
History painting dates back to the Renaissance and was long considered to be the "grand genre". Nevertheless it has its peak in the 19th century forged by Neoclassicism and Romanticism. There it became the artistic contribution in the process of the construction of National Identities of the European and American nations.
At the same time history painting under the influence of historism pretended to be "realistic", to show history how it has been. Above all it was this pretension that led to the great failure of History painting AND Realism at the end of the century.
When artists and their public realized that telling history always will be subjective and a painting will always be an illusion Realism and history painting lost their ground to modern painting.
Is this farewell the normal separation caused by Napoleon going off to one battle field or another? Or is this the Big and Final Farewell, when Napoleon was going off to marry another woman?
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