Lost Cause

A Lost Cause (1888) by the British painter Andrew Carrick Gow (1848-1920).

Gow was a well known history painter. Here he shows James II fleeing to France after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, which ended the catholic claim to the throne and brought the protestant William of Orange to power. It’s therefore a tragic scene, hopes and dreams are buried and many, many Irish will follow their prince into exile.

A Bard

Boyan (1910) by the Russian painter Viktor Vasnetsov (1848-1926).

Vasnetsov son of a priest and played a leading role in the evolution of Russian art from 19th-century realism towards Art Nouveau with a national historical slant. He was also very important in utilizing historical subjects to create a kind of national Slavic myth.
Here he shows Boyan a famous bard from the times of Yaroslav the Wise (c. 978–1054) one of the great rulers of the old Rus. Old noble Rus warriors are listening to their bard, who’s is probably telling them patriotic stories of their glorious past.

Cain's Clan

Cain (1880) by the French painter Fernand-Anne Piestre Cormon (1845-1924).

Cormon depicted Cain and his family fleeing through a desert. There are desperate people in a desperate situation. The strong long shadows have the effect that the whole clan is haunted by the light, meaning the wrath of God.
But despite the biblical subject the painting is above all an anthropologic study. It shows how the artist imagined prehistoric people. So Cain’s folk look more like a horde of Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon, which had been discovered not long before the painting was done.

Sturdy Knights

An illustration of the book The Boy's King Arthur (1922) by N.C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth, one of America's greatest illustrators (1882–1945).

Unlike the 19th century artists historical accuracy was no objective for Wyeth. He was aware that history always would be a construction. So he painted two bullish, powerful knights wearing their armor like a skin.

Recruiting the Poor

Listed for the Connaught Rangers or Recruiting in Ireland (1878) by Lady Butler (1846-1933).

Lady Butler leaves no doubt about the origins of the British soldiers. Here are the poor and homeless recruited to defend the empire. It’s a kind of anticipation of her later painting Evicted (1890).

The Palace Guard

The Palace Guard (1902) by the Austrian painter Ludwig Deutsch (1855-1935).

Deutsch was a very successful orientalist painter and spent most of his career in Paris. To achieve highly detailed scenes he travelled various times to Egypt, took a lot of photographs and had a large collection of tiles, furniture, arms, pipes, fabrics, and costumes.
But nonwithstanding that he was very exact in the details of architecture and costumes his paintings are pure invention. They are glorifying an exotic oriental past, which never existed. But especially because of this combination Deutsch can be considered as one of the ancestors of modern fantasy art.

A dead King

Edith Finding the Body of Harold (1828) by the French painter Horace Emile Jean Vernet (1789-1863).

Vernet depicts here the day after the battle of Hastings (1066) when the queen of the fallen Anglo-Saxon king Harold found the body of her husband. It’s dramatically illuminated and the gestures of the monks indicate grief and disaster.
But above all the painting illustrates the low level of historic knowledge in the early 19th century.

Patriotic Sacrifice

Malasaña and his Daughtery (1890) by the Spanish painter Eugenio Álvarez Dumont (1864-1927).

Eugenio Álvarez Dumont was a very popular painter in his time. Here he presents he scenery from the uprising in Madrid in May 1808 against the Napoleonic occupation, with is better known by the paintings by Goya.
Here the butchered daughter lies on the street like a martyr, while her father tries to avenge her death against a much better but yet scared French cuirassier.
Despite it’s a very well done painting it indicates also already the decline of history-painting, because it’s too well done, too constructed. At the end of the century people didn’t believe much longer in this kind of art.

Patriotic Self-Sacrifice

The Oath of the Horatii (1784) by the French painter Jacques-Louis David (1748- 1825).

David was probably the most influential French painter in the Neoclassical style and started a kind of new era in history painting. His art is mere political propaganda. A reduction of forms and space to the essential. His Oath of the Horatii is an appeal to masculine self-sacrifice for one's country and patriotism.
Disgusting from a modern point of view!

Modern Roman

A Roman officer by the Peruvian American artist Boris Vallejo (born in 1941).

Despite the nearly photorealistic setting it’s all but historic. The women with their eighties tangas, their metal bikinis and their contemporary hairstyle. So it doesn’t matter that the model for the Roman was Vallejo himself.
History has lost all it’s only a exotic decoration for fantasy.

Joan and Michael

The archangel Michael appears to Joan of Arc (1876) by the French painter Eugène Thirion (1839-1910).

Different from many other paintings Joan is here no warrior. She’s a poor girl spinning wool when the archangel appears. In the back is a heroic bugler to be seen.
So it’s above all a patriotic call to arms, which has to be put into the context of the lost war against Prussia in 1871.

Art Deco Cleopatra

Cleopatra by the American Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951).

Leyendecker was a brilliant illustrator of the Art Deco movement. His Cleopatra here is pure ornament and decoration. A historical person is converted into an icon.