The highest form of art

In 1648 the French Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) decided to classify five hierarchies of genre (or type) in painting.

History painting was ranked the highest – ahead of portraiture, still life, scenes from daily life (which is usually called genre painting in art history), and landscape.

The reason history painting ranked so highly was because it included human subjects and was seen as having intellectual and moral weight.

Important proponents of history painting include Peter Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin, Paolo Veronese, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix.

Joshua Reynolds and the Grand Manner

One of Britain's leading portrait painters in the eighteenth century, Joshua Reynolds believed artists should depict grand historical moments and ensure their pictures had intellectual heft.

Having travelled extensively in Italy where he studied antique art, Reynold's felt that art should look to the past – something he often did by using classical compositions or referencing historical figures.

As president of the Royal Academy, Reynolds discussed his ideas about art at great length in 15 lectures – or Discourses – in which he established the principles of the Grand Manner, understood as the highest form of painting based on classical ideals.

In his lectures, which he gave between 1769 and 1790, he encouraged students to learn from classical or Renaissance art and to ensure they dealt with morally elevated subjects.

Modern history painting and empire

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, history painting began to engage with modern historical subjects, in particular scenes of conflict. Rather than featuring figures in historical or classical dress, people were portrayed wearing modern clothes – as seen in works by Benjamin West.

During this period, Britain was involved in a number of wars and empire expansion. Depicting contemporary events in the manner of history painting allowed artists to enhance nationalist ideas, or document empire and colonialism.

The nineteenth century also saw Pre-Raphaelite artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais expand on ideas of history painting, drawing especially on literature and myth.

The problem with history painting today

History painting declined in the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth, yet its influence can be seen in works such as The Death of Maximilian (1867–68) by Édouard Manet and Guernica (1937) by Pablo Picasso. A reaction to the Nazi's bombing in 1937 of a Spanish village, Picasso's work is a moving meditation on the destruction of war and a powerful anti-war statement.

For many contemporary artists, art is a tool with which to revise historical events. 

Artists such as Michael Armitage, Keith Piper, Barbara Walker, Sonia Boyce and Kehinde Wiley have especially reinvigorated the genre by rethinking the Black figure in art history and addressing the impact of our colonial histories.