The Bastard Child of Historicism? Realisms Roots in History Painting

Abstract

Summary In her classic 1974 study Realism, art historian Linda Nochlin claims that by the mid-nineteenth century, realism and realism esthetics so had permeated the art world that it also had affected the academic history painters. But what if this is wrong, if it wasn’t the history painters that were affected by the realists, but rather the other way around? In this article, I will make the case that Realism, the esthetical movement of the mid-nineteenth century, had its roots in the historicism of the early nineteenth century and that the realist claims to give a truthful, objective and impartial representation of the real world, based on meticulous observation, were already present in discussions of history and how to represent history in the arts from the years around 1800. Secondly, the study is also a contribution to the research concerning how the idea and concept of history changed in the early nineteenth century.