The Greatest History Paintings

The Greatest History Paintings

RAFFAELLO SanzioThe School of Athens1509Fresco, width at the base 770 cmStanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican

RAFFAELLO SanzioThe School of Athens (detail)1509FrescoStanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican


Below the tondo on the vault representing Philosophy, ancient philosophers have assembled in the School of Athens. In the centre Plato and Aristotle carry books they have written: Timaeus and Ethics, respectively. Their gestures are rich in meanings: Plato points upward, into the sphere of higher thoughts. With his outstretched hand Aristotle is presumably alluding to his mastery of natural phenomena. On the steps in front of Aristotle rests the Cynic philosopher Diogenes, with the cup that he tossed away.



Pythagoras, representing Arithmetic, is sitting in the foreground. The two men who are jostling to look over his shoulder recall figures in Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi. Raphael had occasion to study Leonardo's picture during his stay in Florence.


Plato and Aristotle are standing in the centre of the picture at the head of the steps. Diogenes is lying carefree on the steps to show his philosophical attitude: he despised all material wealth and the lifestyle associated with it. Below on the right is a great block of stone whose significance is probably connected with the first epistle of St Peter. It symbolizes Christ, the "cornerstone" which the builders have rejected, which becomes a stumbling block and a "rock of offence" to the unbeliever.

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Oath of the Horatii1784Oil on canvas, 330 x 425 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Oath of the Horatii (detail)1784Oil on canvas, 330 x 425 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Oath of the Horatii (detail)1784Oil on canvas, 330 x 425 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

The Oath of the Horatii proved to be a triumph for David. The public was overwhelmed by his break with the Baroque stylistic tradition. For the first time, the unity of time and action had been brought into a deliberately severe composition. The story of the passionate readiness of these heroes for self-sacrifice was known, and it was also recognized that the weeping women in the composition are an expression of foreboding, symbols of the tragedy to come.

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Marat1793Oil on canvas, 162 x 128 cmMusées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Marat (detail)1793Oil on canvas, 162 x 128 cmMusées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels



BRYULLOV, Karl PavlovichLast Day of Pompei1833Oil on canvas, 466 x 651 cmState Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

BRYULLOV, Karl PavlovichLast Day of Pompei (detail)1833Oil on canvas, 466 x 651 cmState Russian Museum, St. Petersburg




DELACROIX, EugèneLiberty Leading the People1830Oil on canvasMusée du Louvre, Paris

DELACROIX, EugèneLiberty Leading the People (detail)1830Oil on canvasMusée du Louvre, Paris

DELACROIX, EugèneLiberty Leading the People (detail)1830Oil on canvasMusée du Louvre, Paris

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Socrates1787Oil on canvas, 130 x 196 cmMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Socrates (detail)1787Oil on canvas, 130 x 196 cmMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

DELAROCHE, PaulThe Execution of Lady Jane Grey1833Oil on canvas, 246 x 297 cmNational Gallery, London

DELAROCHE, PaulThe Execution of Lady Jane Grey (detail)1833Oil on canvas, 246 x 297 cmNational Gallery, London




DEBAT-PONSAN, Edouard Bernard Catherine de Medici gazing at Protestants massacred in the aftermath of the massacre of St. Bartholomew 1880 Oil on canvasMusée Roger-Quilliot, France - Clermont-Ferrand

DEBAT-PONSAN, Edouard Bernard Catherine de Medici gazing at Protestants massacred in the aftermath of the massacre of St. Bartholomew (detail)1880 Oil on canvasMusée Roger-Quilliot, France - Clermont-Ferrand



DELACROIX, EugèneThe Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople1840Oil on canvas, 410 x 498 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

DELACROIX, EugèneThe Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople (detail)1840Oil on canvas, 410 x 498 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid1814Oil on canvas, 266 x 345 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid (detail)1814 Oil on canvas, 266 x 345 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid (detail)1814 Oil on canvas, 266 x 345 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

The Greatest History Paintings

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GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid

This painting was commissioned by the provisional government of Spain, upon Goya’s suggestion, to commemorate the invasion of Spain by Napoleon’s troops in 1808. At the time it was painted, the painting was considered groundbreaking and revolutionary, as it presents the horrors of war that had heretofore not been openly illustrated. The painting focuses on one man, illuminated in white light in the middle of the painting, arms held out to the sides, facing a French firing squad. His slain companions litter the ground. It is

thus considered one of the first pieces of modern art. This painting has influence a number of other artists, who have directly referenced the style and setting of the painting, including Edouard Manet and Pablo Picasso.

RAFFAELLO SanzioThe School of Athens

The School of Athens is a depiction of philosophy. The scene takes place in classical times, as both the architecture and the garments indicate. Figures representing each subject that must be mastered in order to hold a true philosophic debate - astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and solid geometry - are depicted in concrete form. The arbiters of this rule, the

main figures, Plato and Aristotle, are shown in the centre, engaged in such a dialogue.

The School of Athens represents the truth acquired through reason. Raphael does not entrust his illustration to allegorical figures, as was customary in the 14th and 15th centuries. Rather, he groups the solemn figures of thinkers and philosophers together in a large, grandiose architectural framework. This framework is characterized by a high

dome, a vault with lacunar ceiling and pilasters. It is probably inspired by late Roman architecture or - as most critics believe - by Bramante's project for the new St Peter's which is itself a symbol of the synthesis of pagan and Christian philosophies.

The figures who dominate the composition do not crowd the environment, nor are they suffocated by it. Rather, they underline the breadth and depth of the architectural structures. The protagonists - Plato, represented with a white beard (some people identify this solemn old man with Leonardo da Vinci) and Aristotle - are both characterized by a precise and meaningful pose. Raphael's descriptive capacity, in contrast to that visible in the allegories of earlier painters, is such that the figures do not pay homage to, or group

around the symbols of knowledge; they do not form a parade. They move, act, teach, discuss and become excited.

The fresco achieved immediate success. Its beauty and its thematic unity were universally accepted.

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Oath of the Horatii

David owed his rise to fame - after many reversals - to a painting for the execution of which he took his family to Rome, in order to absorb himself totally in the world of antique forms. It was The Oath of the Horatii.

The story is from the 7th century B.C., and it tells of the triplet sons of Publius Horatius, who decided the struggle between Rome and Albalonga. One survived, but he killed his own sister because she wept for one of the fallen foes, to whom she was betrothed. Condemned to death for the murder of a sibling, Horatius' son is pardoned by

the will of the people.

Because of its austerity and depiction of dutiful patriotism, The Oath of the Horatii is often considered to be the clearest expression of Neoclassicism in painting. Each of the three elements of the picture - the sons, the father and the women - is framed by a section of a Doric arcade, and the figures are located in a narrow stage-like space. David

split the picture between the masculine resolve of the father and brothers and the slumped resignation of the women..

The focal point of the work is occupied by the swords that old Horatius is about to distribute to his sons. While the rear two brothers take the oath with their left hands, the foremost one swears with his right. Perhaps David did this simply as a way of grouping the figures together, but people at the time noticed this detail, and some supposed

that this meant that the brother in the front would be the one to survive the combat.

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Marat

This painting can be regarded as David's finest work, in which he has perfectly succeeded in immortalizing a contemporary political event as an image of social ideals. David's painting of Marat represents the peak of his involvement in the Revolution where invention, style, fervent belief and devotion combine to produce one of the most perfect examples

of political painting. David presented the painting to the Convention on 14 November 1793.

Jean-Paul Marat saw himself as a friend of the people, he was a doctor of medicine and a physicist, and above all he was editor of the news-sheet Ami du peuple. He suffered from a skin disease and had to perform his business for the revolution in a soothing bath. This is where David shows him, in the moment after the pernicious murder by Charlotte Corday, a supporter of the aristocracy. David had seen his fellow party member and friend the day before. Under the impact of their personal friendship David created his painting

"as if in a trance," as one of his pupils later reported.

David takes the viewer into Marat's private room, making him the witness of the moments immediately after the murder. Marat's head and arm have sunk down, but the dead hand still holds pen and paper. This snapshot of exactly the minute between the last breath and death in the bathroom had an immense impact at the time, and it still has the same

effect today.

David has used a dark, immeasurable background to intensify the significance. The boldness of the high half of the room above the figure concentrates attention on the lowered head, and makes us all the more aware of the vacuum that has been created. The distribution of light here has been reversed from the usual practice, with dark above light. This is

not only one of the most moving paintings of the time, but David has also created a secularised image of martyrdom. The painting has often, and rightly, been compared with Michelangelo's Pietà in Rome; in both the most striking element is the arm hanging down lifeless. Thus David has unobtrusively taken over the central image of martyrdom in

Christianity to his image of Marat. Revolutionary and anti-religious as the painting of this period claimed to be, it is evident here that it very often had recourse to the iconography and pictorial vocabulary of the religious art of the past.

BRYULLOV, Karl PavlovichLast Day of Pompei

The Last Day of Pompeii is a large canvas painting by Russian artist Karl Briullov in 1830-33.

Briullov visited the site of Pompeii in 1828, making numerous sketches depicting the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption. The completed canvas was exhibited in Rome to rapturous reviews of critics and thereafter transported to Paris to be displayed in the Louvre. The first Russian artwork to cause such an interest abroad, it gave birth to an anthologic poem by Alexander Pushkin, and inspired the hugely successful novel The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who saw it in Rome. Another British author, Sir Walter Scott declared that it

was not an ordinary painting but an epic in colours.

The topic is classical, but Briullov's dramatic treatment and generous use of chiaroscuro render it farther advanced from the neoclassical style. In fact, The Last Day of Pompeii exemplifies many of the characteristics of Romanticism as it manifests itself in Russian art, including drama, realism tempered with idealism, increased interest in nature,

and a zealous fondness for historical subjects.The commissioner, Prince Anatole Demidov, donated the painting to Nicholas I of Russia who displayed it at the Imperial Academy of Arts for the instruction of young painters. To

present the painting to a wider audience the canvas was transferred to the Russian Museum for the museum's opening in 1895.

Briullov included a self-portrait in the upper left corner of the painting, under the steeple, one of the several foci in the picture, but not easy to identify.

DELACROIX, EugèneLiberty Leading the People

The Liberty Leading the People is a sort of epic narrative of the woman who quits her hearth to espouse a great cause. There is a carpet of bodies beneath her feet as she leads the ravening crowd. Her naked breasts have come to embody the social virtues of Republicanism, a point officially acknowledged by the generous diffusion of the image in the form of French stamps. It is also the first modern political composition. It marks the moment at which Romanticism abandoned its classical sources of inspiration to take up an emphatic role in contemporary life. Delacroix enrolled as a garde national, and in this role he portrayed himself, wearing a top hat, to the left of Liberty. The young drummer brandishing his

pistols to the right of Liberty was, perhaps, the inspiration for the character Gavroche, in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, written thirty years later. Delacroix's influences - Goya, Gros, and, above all, Géricault - are clearly apparent.

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Socrates

At the approach of the French Revolution, when Greek and Roman civic virtues were extolled as salutary antidotes to the degeneracy of the Old Regime, David triumphed at the Salon with a succession of works, including this one, that gave clear expression to the moral and philosophical principles of his time.

Socrates was accused by the Athenian government of impiety and corrupting the young through his teachings; he was offered the choice of renouncing his beliefs or being sentenced to death for treason. Faithful to his convictions and obedient to the law, Socrates chose to accept his sentence.

Here Socrates reaches for the cup of poisonous hemlock while he discourses on the immortality of the soul. The Death of Socrates became a symbol of republican virtue and was a manifesto of the Neoclassical style.

DELAROCHE, PaulThe Execution of Lady Jane Grey

The painting depicts the last moments on 12 February 1554 in the life of the seventeen-year old Jane Grey, a great granddaughter of Henry VII who was proclaimed Queen of England upon the death of young King Edward VI, a Protestant like herself. She reigned for nine days in 1553, but, through the machinations of the partisans of Henry VIII's Catholic

daughter, Mary Tudor, she was convicted of high treason and sentenced to death in the Tower of London.

Delaroche, who based the painting on a sixteenth-century Protestant martyrology, has falsified the historical account the better to appeal to his contemporaries. Lady Jane Grey, a humanist-educated young married woman, was in fact executed out of doors. Attended by two gentlewomen, probably no less stoical than she, she resolutely made her own way to the block. She could not have worn a white satin dress of nineteenth-century cut with a whalebone corset, and her hair would have been tucked up, not streaming down over her

shoulders. But a painting cannot be judged by the criteria of historical accuracy. Much more applicable to this particular picture are the standards of popular melodrama and tableau vivant.

As on a stage, the heroine gropes her way towards the audience, gently guided by the elderly Constable of the Tower whose massive, dark, male presence acts as a foil to her own. A spotlight trained on her from above complements the dim stage lighting, reflecting from her immaculate dress and the straw which spills over into the front row of the stalls. The emotions of each actor are carefully delineated and distinguished, and we are left in no doubt as to the character of each even of the lady in the background who turns her back

on the terrible sight.

DEBAT-PONSAN, Edouard Bernard Catherine de Medici gazing at Protestants massacred in the aftermath of the massacre of St. Bartholomew

One morning at the gates of the Louvre, Catherine de' Medici (in black) calmly viewing the bodies of victims of the 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Debat-Ponsan might have actually intended to refer to more recent events in French history, such as the bloody suppression of the Commune of Paris, nine years before this painting was made.

The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy in French) was a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots (French Protestants). Starting on August 24, 1572, with the assassination of a prominent Huguenot, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the massacres spread throughout Paris and later to other cities and the countryside,

lasting for several months, during 5,000 to 20,000 may have been killed.

DELACROIX, EugèneThe Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople

For Louis-Philippe's new historical galleries at Versailles Delacroix painted a characteristically independent, if not actually subversive account of The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople. Depicting the climax of the Fourth Crusade, largely a French initiative, this might have been thought a glorious theme, as well as a nod towards that latter-day

crusader Napoleon. But the campaign had been fatally tarnished by the pillage it visited upon Constantinople, and Delacroix allows his victors no pleasure in their conquest. Their leader, Baldwin of Flanders, turns away from the vanquished infidel, remorseful or uncertain what to do next, and even his horse stoops as if in sorrow.

In The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, like in The Massacre of Chios, there is a meditation on the misfortunes of war, in both the conquerors on their trembling steeds tower over prostrate women.

History Painting (Istoria)

Derived from the Italian word "istoria" (narrative), the term 'history painting' refers to any picture with a high-minded or heroic narrative (message) as illustrated by the exemplary deeds of its figures. Originally dominated by religious paintings, the category expanded during the Italian Renaissance to include works depicting themes from mythology, literature, or history, typically executed in a large-scale format. For the world's greatest exponents of this type of art, see: Best History Painters.

There are five main categories of "History Painting": religious, mythological, allegorical, literary and historical. But please note that, whichever category the painting belongs to, its message must be edifying and worthy of depiction.

(1) Religious history paintings. This speaks for itself. It involves any type of picture with a religious narrative - including Christian (Catholic, Protestant), Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish or tribal religion. Good examples include: Descent From the Cross (Deposition) (c.1435-40, Prado, Madrid) by Roger van der Weyden, and The Avignon Pieta (1454-6, Louvre, Paris) by Enguerrand Quarton. For general themes from Christianity, see: Christian art (150-2000). For later works, see: Protestant Reformation Art (c.1520-1700), as well as Catholic Counter-Reformation Art (1560-1700).

(2) Mythological history paintings. Myths are stories developed to explain unaccountable phenomena in the world. Mythological painting includes any picture illustrating a mythical story, fable or legend. Popular themes included legends surrounding Greek gods (e.g. Ares, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Hera, Hermes, Hestia, Poseidon, and Zeus), or mythical stories of Roman deities like: Apollo, Diana, Juno, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Venus). Examples include: Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-23) and Bacchanal of the Andrians (1523-5) by Titian; Jupiter and Io (1533, Vienna) by Correggio; Allegory with Venus and Cupid (1540-50) by Bronzino; Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus (1618, Alte Pinakothek, Munich) and Judgement of Paris (1635, National Gallery, London) by Rubens; Abduction of the Sabine Women (1634-5, Metropolitan Museum) and Et in Arcadia Ego (1637, Louvre) by Nicolas Poussin; The Rokeby Venus (1647-51, National Gallery, London) by Velazquez. Suicide of Lucretia (c.1666, Minneapolis Institute of Arts) by Rembrandt van Rijn; The Colossus (1810, Prado, Madrid) by Goya; Saturn Devouring his Son (1819-23, Prado, Madrid) by Goya; Pasiphae (1943, Metropolitan Museum of Art) by Jackson Pollock; and Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944, Tate Collection) by Francis Bacon.

(3) Allegorical history paintings. An allegory is a story containing a hidden meaning. Allegorical pictures typically use people or objects that symbolize (or represent) other people or things. Examples include: Allegory of Good and Bad Government (1338-9, Siena) by Ambrogio Lorenzetti; Garden of Earthly Delights (1500-5, Prado Museum, Madrid) by Hieronymus Bosch; and The Tempest (1508, Venice Academy Gallery) by Giorgione. For a modern example, see: The Artist's Studio - A Real Allegory (1855, Musee d'Orsay) by Courbet.

(4) Literary history paintings. A narrower category (sometimes included within Mythological category, above) consisting of narrative paintings based on themes taken from literature (not involving mythological stories). Popular literary works include the plays of William Shakespeare, the poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) and classics like Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Paintings include: Eve tempted by the Serpent (1800, Victoria and Albert Museum) by William Blake; Ophelia (1852, Tate Collection) by John Everett Millais; The Reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets (1854, Yale Center for British Art) by Frederic Leighton; Dante's Dream (1871, Walker Art Gallery) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti; and Lady of Shalott (1888, Tate Collection) by John Waterhouse.

(5) Historical history painting. The most straightforward category, it embraces all pictures depicting an event or a moment in history, or a historical figure who embodies a clear message. Examples include Battle of San Romano (1438-55; National Gallery London; Uffizi Florence; Louvre Paris) by Paolo Uccello; School of Athens (1509-11, Fresco, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican) by Raphael; The Surrender of Breda (1635) by Velazquez; The Third of May, 1808 (1814, Prado, Madrid) by Goya; The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (1931, Metropolitan Museum, NY) by Grant Wood; and Guernica (1937, Reina Sofia) by Pablo Picasso.

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The Greatest History Paintings