What Was History Painting and What Is It Now?

"One of the most engaging and provocative collections of essays that I've read in some time." Douglas Fordham, University of Virginia "This coherent and well-integrated collective work is the result of a brilliant idea, that of rejecting a simple definition of history painting and a simple story of the decline of a genre, accepting rival definitions and replacing 'decline' with 'change.' It breaks new ground and should inspire further research." Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, and author of Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe "The case study format functions as an effective litmus test, prompting the reader, as Phillips and Bear do in their respective introductions, to consider other works of art while grappling with the idea of history painting as a heuristic. Other media slide naturally into this space, as many of the contributors show. The result intelligently complicates history painting, both neutralizing the authorial grip of the theoretical paradigm while also enhancing the nuance of the work under scrutiny. ... the idea of permanence is rigorously explored vis-à-vis the works of art, especially in terms of the medium. Here, as in the book, is a good place to end: the multi-media, and multi-sensory, work of eco-artists Rúrí, Mariele Neudecker, Katie Paterson, and Isabelle Hayeur pick up on the most efficacious feature of history painting for our time: a call to action." RACAR "In tracing the ways in which artists utilized the mechanics of the genre outside of the constraints set by the European academies, this volume may serve world historians in finding creative ways to decode the visual structures of history painting as they served not only to support, but to critique or subvert ideologies and artistic concepts." Journal of World History