History painting is a painting genre defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, although it is usually realistic in style. The historical events chosen may be iconographic, not only depicting important events, but ones of particular significance to the painter's society, as for instance, the signing of the declaration of independence in American history painting. The event, if suitable, does not need to have actually occurred, and artists have frequently taken great liberties with historical facts in order to portray the message desired.

The gods and goddesses from the ancient mythologies represented different aspects of the human psyche, figures from religions represented different ideas, and history, like the other sources, represented a dialectic or play of ideas. For a long time, especially during the French Revolution, history painting often focused on depiction of the heroic male nude; though this waned into the 19th century. Other artists depicted scenes, regardless of when they occurred, in classical dress.

When, in 1770, Benjamin West proposed to depict "The Death of General Wolfe" in contemporary dress, he was firmly instructed to use classical attire by many people. He did depict the scene in clothing that had occurred on the scene. Although George III refused to purchase the work, West succeeded both in overcoming his critics' objections and inaugurating a more historically accurate style in such paintings.

In the mid-nineteenth-century there arose a style known as historicism, which marked a formal imitation of historical styles and/or artists. Another development in the nineteenth century was the blending of this genre with that known as genre painting: the depiction of scenes of everyday life. Grand depictions of events of great public importance were supplemented with scenes depicting more personal incidents in the lives of the great, or the everyday life in historical settings.

The artists who depicted them sometimes connected the change with the moral messages conveyed by the public events; they asserted that moral messages were also instructive in the ordinary life, and indeed, were even superior because more people would be able to apply the lesson implicit in a depiction of family life than in one of a heroic death on the battle field.

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