At the Colosseum by the British painter Harold Hume Piffard (1895-1938). Piffard depicts here an elegant Roman noblewoman watching comfortly the bloody spectacle below. A well constucted contrast indeed.
Saragossa 10 February 1809 by the British painter Harold Hume Piffard (1895-1938).
Piffard depicts here the bloody struggle in a church during the siege a Saragossa. The defending Spanish priests are showing even more bloodlust than their French adversaries. And to me it seems that the priest in center is not praying peace or forgiveness, it looks much like some kind of exorcism.
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.