19th Century Art: Visual Encyclopaedia: Visual Encyclopaedia of Art. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.19th Century Art: Visual Encyclopaedia: Visual Encyclopaedia of Art

The 19th century was a pivotal period in VVestern I history, marked by a revolutionary phase involving not only politics but art and, more broadly speaking, taste. The roots of this change date back to the 1740s, vvhen there was a cali for a new kind of art, one that vvould be useful and educational, both aesthetically and morally, in contrast to the frivolousand "uncommitted" tendency of the Rococo. The new model identified vvith ancient Greece and Rome&;#59; it vvas believed that through the imitation of antiquity, art could aspire to the ideal beauty of true nature. The outcomes of such a revolution vvere unforeseeable and historical events soon came to jeopardise the very system of thought that had given rise to them. Artists' attention shifted tovvards a more emotional and personal sphere, Neoclassical "conventions" came to be seen as outvvorn, vvhile the focus turned to the more intimate aspects of the human soul: phantasy, the unconscious, the relation betvveen man and nature and betvveen man and the divine. These vvere the earliest, but not the only manifestations of Romanticism: sharp anti-Classical polemics, together with the rise of nationalist movements in Europe, led to the spread of nevv models, derived mainly from the Middle Ages, vvhich in turn gave rise to various revival movements and above ali to historical genre painting. This vvas the soil from vvhich realism vvas to spring in the mid-19tn century. The superseding of academic conventions, history and vvar as the theatre of action for man, represented as-it-is in the here and novv, so much so that a preference developed for lovv-life subject matter, these are just a few of the pivots of a movement vvhich vvas to elevate ordinary men and vvomen to the status of nevv "heroes of modern life".