Håkon the Good (1860) by the Norwegian painter Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831-1892). Arbo depicts here the christian king Håkon the Good attacked by a pagan priest.
What a bizarre concept. A person attacking a king, be a pagan priest or otherwise, was sure to be locked up in gaol and executed. This painting, Hakon the Good, must have been some sort of moral lesson to viewers.
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.
What a bizarre concept. A person attacking a king, be a pagan priest or otherwise, was sure to be locked up in gaol and executed. This painting, Hakon the Good, must have been some sort of moral lesson to viewers.
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