Historical Wall Art
WALL ARTHistory painting treated events from the past, classical, biblical or national, as subjects worthy of the scale and seriousness that religious painting had long claimed. Artists reconstructed battles, coronations, treaties and the deaths of notable figures, often compressing or inventing detail to sharpen the moral or political point being made. The genre sat at the top of academic hierarchies for much of the period covered here, commissioned by courts, churches and later by nations wanting to commemorate their own past. Costume and setting were researched with varying accuracy. What survives under this heading ranges from grand set pieces to smaller narrative scenes drawn from recorded history.
