History Painting Reassessed

History painting was once the most prestigious and ambitious genre of art to be found in the salons and academies of Europe. However it has seen a dramatic decline in status in the 19th century and virtual disappearance in the 20th century. The fortunes of history painting raise the larger issue as to whether, in some sense, the idea of history itself has ended. The series of essays in this volume reflect upon these questions through the analysis of the work of such artists as Jeff Wall, Robert Smithson, Gerhard Richter and Louise Bourgeois. Using a diverse range of theoretical and critical perspectives, the authors examine how modern and contemporary artists have continued to engage with questions of history and its representation in a context in which our sense of history is inevitably filtered by the concerns of politics, gender, post-colonialism and ecology. The book demonstrates that if the traditional forms and subjects of history painting no longer survive, some of its ambitions and endeavours persist within the radical redefinitions of art in the latter part of the 20th century.