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Cut from the page as irrelevant.
These "history paintings," as they were called, demonstrate how profoundly painters, actors, directors and critics influenced one another and how interdependent they were in their critical interpretations, depictions and productions of Shakespeare's plays. In the nineteenth century the relationship between literature and the graphic arts was much closer and the definition of "literary" criticism was broader than it is now. A critic like John Eagles blurs most of our modern distinctions when he says of Daniel Maclise's painting The Play Scene in "Hamlet" (1842) that "It is the business of the dramatist to make good pictures, and whether it be done by the players or the painter, what matter, so they be effective, and the story worth telling; and how shall they be better told than as the author intended they should be represented? The boards of the theatre and the canvass are the same thing--the eye is to behold, and the mind to be moved."
This strikes me as entirely off-topic. The assertion in the opening paragraph is rather weak; I have never heard paintings based on Shakespeare's works called history paintings. Goldfritha 19:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
If the term "history painting" included religious and all the other categories listed here, what meaning would it have? This article has no meaning as currently written. Wduncan43 ( talk) 13:25, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I have been trying to clean up the Military art article. This source [1] points to historical war art as being a subtype of History painting. I can find no clear reference or definition for "Military art" other than that and it seems to me "Military art" should simply be merged into this article. Other views? Ohioartdude2 ( talk) 04:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Sentence below was the lead of this article [2] but did not summarize and seemed to make the unreferenced claim that André Félibien defined the genre in some way. Needs to be integrated into the article in a much clearer form. Ohioartdude2 ( talk) 16:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't know how long this has been here, but I just deleted a painting of Diana and Actaeon that was chosen as the top illustration. Apologies for the hysterical edit summary, but good grief—that's an example of mythological painting, and the gallery of full of actual history paintings from which a choice could be made. "History painting", as the article actually does say, doesn't mean "having to do vaguely with the past." I'll look through the gallery and Commons and try to find something more exemplary. Cynwolfe ( talk) 15:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Johnbod, you might try thinking about the content of the comment, instead of trying to discredit the person making it. Nobody's arguing with you in substance, only about the most effective presentation for the benefit of readers. It isn't unusual for a term to have a common meaning and a specialized meaning. If the purpose of the top image is to provide an impeccable example of the specialized meaning, then the caption needs to be more explanatory. The current caption just identifies the painting, and doesn't do anything to explain away the misunderstanding that we ignoramuses might bring to the article. However, I agree with Ceoil that choosing a top image on the basis of "most surprise" seems counterproductive. The article has a grand total of one footnote. If you want to defend it as ipso facto authoritative, OK, but there might be more productive things to do. It might be worth pulling out two or three examples from the large gallery to illustrate the section on the history of the genre more directly, with expanded content and sources. A short final paragraph-section could acknowledge the common or generalized usage that one might encounter in non-specialist RS. (Ceoil: A Chelsea F.C. replica kit? Tee hee.) Cynwolfe ( talk) 20:15, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Not here to take sides: but the above made me interested in comparing this article to Grove Art's entry. The lead I think fairly summarizes Grove's explanation of history painting, if obviously more briefly and glossing over post-Renaissance aspects (a problem of article organization or level of completion as opposed to inaccuracy). Grove's entry starts out with much emphasis on Leon Battista Alberti's conception of istoria--and Grove has a separate entry for Istoria [historia] ("Term first used in the 15th century to refer to the complex new narrative and allegorical subjects that were then enlarging the repertory of painters. While remaining in use, its meaning became less clearly defined and more generalized in the 16th century..."). Grove's history painting entry has things like "During the 16th century, the majority of Italian paintings, whether of religious, mythological, literary or historical subject-matter could at some level be classed as history painting". I agree that an explanation of this in the caption of the existing image would be helpful. It might also be helpful to contrast, in two images and captions in the lead, a Renaissance and a neoclassical history painting for example (agree with Ceoil re David; prefer Death of Socrates as, at last, an historical subject actually recognizable to the average reader; it is mentioned along with Oath in Grove). Riggr Mortis ( talk) 22:59, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
"The term is derived from the wider senses of the word historia in Latin and Italian, and essentially means "story painting", rather than the painting of scenes from history in its narrower sense in modern English, for which the term historical painting may be used, especially for 19th century art." I dispute this, but Johnbod feels that the sources provided are sufficient. These sources are Ruskin (eminent art historian, but an 1854 source can't hardly describe how we now make or don't make a distinction between two terms, and in fact doesn't make that distinction), and (though not added to that sentence) the National Gallery glossary, which only mentions history painting, not historical painting, so can hardly be used to reference this. This leaves us only with Strong, which is first introduced much farther down in the page. It is unclear what part of Strong's book is supposed to support this statement. Assuming that this source does make this distinction: considering that most recent relevant sources don't seem to make this distinction at all, why would be take one source over many others?
Note: I'm not disputing that the focus of history painting may have shifted, and that the definition has been broader at times and narrower at others; but I dispute that it is common to make that distinction by applying "historical painting" to one and "history painting" to the other. Fram ( talk) 11:51, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Johnbod, I think you may have unknowingly destroyed your whole argument. You provided a link to Webster's dictionary to support your "historical painting" statement [6]. What you either didn't notice or forgot to mention, is that at that very same source, "history painting" is a redirect to "historical painting" [7], so according to your source, the two are identical and can be used interchangeably. Thanks for proving my case! Fram ( talk) 06:45, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Third opinion requested at Wikipedia:Third opinion.
Thanks. I have removed for starters a newly added section that used a discussion of "historical painting techniques" as if it had any relevance to "historical painting vs history painting". It's "Historical / painting techniques", not "Historical painting / techniques", so not relevant here. Let's not confuse the issues even further please. (The original sentence was ""Historical painting" may also be used, especially in discussion of painting techniques in conservation studies, to mean "old", as opposed to modern or recent painting.") That the same combination of words can be used in different grammatical contexts is not really relevant for the discussion of the distinction between history painting and historical painting (if any), something that seems to be uncodified and rarely followed anyway. Fram ( talk) 13:56, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
What do you at present mean by historical painting? Now-a-days it means the endeavoring, by the power of imagination, to portray some historical event of past days. But in the Middle Ages, it meant representing the acts of their own days; and that is the only historical painting worth a straw. Of all the wastes of time and sense which Modernism has invented—and they are many—none are so ridiculous as this endeavour to represent past history. What do you suppose our descendants will care for our imaginations of the events of former days? Suppose the Greeks, instead of representing their own warriors as they fought at Marathon, had left us nothing but their imaginations of Egyptian battles; and suppose the Italians, in like manner, instead of portraits of Can Grande and Dante, or of Leo the Tenth and Raphael, had left us nothing but imaginary portraits of Pericles and Miltiades? What fools we should have thought them! how bitterly we should have been provoked with their folly!
"Ambition" is not a defining factor of what is or isn't "history painting". While later history paintings often tend to go for the large-scale mass-scenes, adding "ambition" to the definition of the genre excludes way too many works, especially many of the older religious and allegorical works which are clearly included in the genre. A work like File:Cimabue - Flagellation.jpg fits perfectly in the definition of "history painting", but can hardly be called ambitious (or certainly not more ambitious than portraits, landscapes, genre paintings, ...). I have therefor excluded it again from the introduction of the article [8]. Fram ( talk) 07:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
This source also discusses the shift in focus between earlier history painting and 19th century history painting (all under the same name though, no new name is applied for the latter), and gives a definition of history painting. Apparently "ambition" is again not an integral part of the definition, which focuses on the narrative, story-telling aspect, the "istoria" of old.
Obviously, I'm not proposing that the position of history painting as the "highest", most difficult, most fulfilling, most ambitious of all genres is not discussed in the article or even in the lead; but that doesn't mean that these things are the defining aspect of what "history painting" is and what isn't. They are results of the topic, reflections on what it encompasses, what one needs to succeed as an historical painter, certainly in the eyes of older art historians. Fram ( talk) 12:33, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
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Cut from the page as irrelevant.
These "history paintings," as they were called, demonstrate how profoundly painters, actors, directors and critics influenced one another and how interdependent they were in their critical interpretations, depictions and productions of Shakespeare's plays. In the nineteenth century the relationship between literature and the graphic arts was much closer and the definition of "literary" criticism was broader than it is now. A critic like John Eagles blurs most of our modern distinctions when he says of Daniel Maclise's painting The Play Scene in "Hamlet" (1842) that "It is the business of the dramatist to make good pictures, and whether it be done by the players or the painter, what matter, so they be effective, and the story worth telling; and how shall they be better told than as the author intended they should be represented? The boards of the theatre and the canvass are the same thing--the eye is to behold, and the mind to be moved."
This strikes me as entirely off-topic. The assertion in the opening paragraph is rather weak; I have never heard paintings based on Shakespeare's works called history paintings. Goldfritha 19:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
If the term "history painting" included religious and all the other categories listed here, what meaning would it have? This article has no meaning as currently written. Wduncan43 ( talk) 13:25, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I have been trying to clean up the Military art article. This source [1] points to historical war art as being a subtype of History painting. I can find no clear reference or definition for "Military art" other than that and it seems to me "Military art" should simply be merged into this article. Other views? Ohioartdude2 ( talk) 04:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Sentence below was the lead of this article [2] but did not summarize and seemed to make the unreferenced claim that André Félibien defined the genre in some way. Needs to be integrated into the article in a much clearer form. Ohioartdude2 ( talk) 16:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't know how long this has been here, but I just deleted a painting of Diana and Actaeon that was chosen as the top illustration. Apologies for the hysterical edit summary, but good grief—that's an example of mythological painting, and the gallery of full of actual history paintings from which a choice could be made. "History painting", as the article actually does say, doesn't mean "having to do vaguely with the past." I'll look through the gallery and Commons and try to find something more exemplary. Cynwolfe ( talk) 15:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Johnbod, you might try thinking about the content of the comment, instead of trying to discredit the person making it. Nobody's arguing with you in substance, only about the most effective presentation for the benefit of readers. It isn't unusual for a term to have a common meaning and a specialized meaning. If the purpose of the top image is to provide an impeccable example of the specialized meaning, then the caption needs to be more explanatory. The current caption just identifies the painting, and doesn't do anything to explain away the misunderstanding that we ignoramuses might bring to the article. However, I agree with Ceoil that choosing a top image on the basis of "most surprise" seems counterproductive. The article has a grand total of one footnote. If you want to defend it as ipso facto authoritative, OK, but there might be more productive things to do. It might be worth pulling out two or three examples from the large gallery to illustrate the section on the history of the genre more directly, with expanded content and sources. A short final paragraph-section could acknowledge the common or generalized usage that one might encounter in non-specialist RS. (Ceoil: A Chelsea F.C. replica kit? Tee hee.) Cynwolfe ( talk) 20:15, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Not here to take sides: but the above made me interested in comparing this article to Grove Art's entry. The lead I think fairly summarizes Grove's explanation of history painting, if obviously more briefly and glossing over post-Renaissance aspects (a problem of article organization or level of completion as opposed to inaccuracy). Grove's entry starts out with much emphasis on Leon Battista Alberti's conception of istoria--and Grove has a separate entry for Istoria [historia] ("Term first used in the 15th century to refer to the complex new narrative and allegorical subjects that were then enlarging the repertory of painters. While remaining in use, its meaning became less clearly defined and more generalized in the 16th century..."). Grove's history painting entry has things like "During the 16th century, the majority of Italian paintings, whether of religious, mythological, literary or historical subject-matter could at some level be classed as history painting". I agree that an explanation of this in the caption of the existing image would be helpful. It might also be helpful to contrast, in two images and captions in the lead, a Renaissance and a neoclassical history painting for example (agree with Ceoil re David; prefer Death of Socrates as, at last, an historical subject actually recognizable to the average reader; it is mentioned along with Oath in Grove). Riggr Mortis ( talk) 22:59, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
"The term is derived from the wider senses of the word historia in Latin and Italian, and essentially means "story painting", rather than the painting of scenes from history in its narrower sense in modern English, for which the term historical painting may be used, especially for 19th century art." I dispute this, but Johnbod feels that the sources provided are sufficient. These sources are Ruskin (eminent art historian, but an 1854 source can't hardly describe how we now make or don't make a distinction between two terms, and in fact doesn't make that distinction), and (though not added to that sentence) the National Gallery glossary, which only mentions history painting, not historical painting, so can hardly be used to reference this. This leaves us only with Strong, which is first introduced much farther down in the page. It is unclear what part of Strong's book is supposed to support this statement. Assuming that this source does make this distinction: considering that most recent relevant sources don't seem to make this distinction at all, why would be take one source over many others?
Note: I'm not disputing that the focus of history painting may have shifted, and that the definition has been broader at times and narrower at others; but I dispute that it is common to make that distinction by applying "historical painting" to one and "history painting" to the other. Fram ( talk) 11:51, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Johnbod, I think you may have unknowingly destroyed your whole argument. You provided a link to Webster's dictionary to support your "historical painting" statement [6]. What you either didn't notice or forgot to mention, is that at that very same source, "history painting" is a redirect to "historical painting" [7], so according to your source, the two are identical and can be used interchangeably. Thanks for proving my case! Fram ( talk) 06:45, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Third opinion requested at Wikipedia:Third opinion.
Thanks. I have removed for starters a newly added section that used a discussion of "historical painting techniques" as if it had any relevance to "historical painting vs history painting". It's "Historical / painting techniques", not "Historical painting / techniques", so not relevant here. Let's not confuse the issues even further please. (The original sentence was ""Historical painting" may also be used, especially in discussion of painting techniques in conservation studies, to mean "old", as opposed to modern or recent painting.") That the same combination of words can be used in different grammatical contexts is not really relevant for the discussion of the distinction between history painting and historical painting (if any), something that seems to be uncodified and rarely followed anyway. Fram ( talk) 13:56, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
What do you at present mean by historical painting? Now-a-days it means the endeavoring, by the power of imagination, to portray some historical event of past days. But in the Middle Ages, it meant representing the acts of their own days; and that is the only historical painting worth a straw. Of all the wastes of time and sense which Modernism has invented—and they are many—none are so ridiculous as this endeavour to represent past history. What do you suppose our descendants will care for our imaginations of the events of former days? Suppose the Greeks, instead of representing their own warriors as they fought at Marathon, had left us nothing but their imaginations of Egyptian battles; and suppose the Italians, in like manner, instead of portraits of Can Grande and Dante, or of Leo the Tenth and Raphael, had left us nothing but imaginary portraits of Pericles and Miltiades? What fools we should have thought them! how bitterly we should have been provoked with their folly!
"Ambition" is not a defining factor of what is or isn't "history painting". While later history paintings often tend to go for the large-scale mass-scenes, adding "ambition" to the definition of the genre excludes way too many works, especially many of the older religious and allegorical works which are clearly included in the genre. A work like File:Cimabue - Flagellation.jpg fits perfectly in the definition of "history painting", but can hardly be called ambitious (or certainly not more ambitious than portraits, landscapes, genre paintings, ...). I have therefor excluded it again from the introduction of the article [8]. Fram ( talk) 07:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
This source also discusses the shift in focus between earlier history painting and 19th century history painting (all under the same name though, no new name is applied for the latter), and gives a definition of history painting. Apparently "ambition" is again not an integral part of the definition, which focuses on the narrative, story-telling aspect, the "istoria" of old.
Obviously, I'm not proposing that the position of history painting as the "highest", most difficult, most fulfilling, most ambitious of all genres is not discussed in the article or even in the lead; but that doesn't mean that these things are the defining aspect of what "history painting" is and what isn't. They are results of the topic, reflections on what it encompasses, what one needs to succeed as an historical painter, certainly in the eyes of older art historians. Fram ( talk) 12:33, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
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