Tour: British and American History Paintings of the 1700s

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7	8

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Overview

Sophisticated Europeans from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries deemed “history painting” to be the supreme achievement in the visual arts. In addition to imaginatively re-creating actual events from the past, history paintings also illustrated heroic or moralizing episodes from religion, mythology, and literature.

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Captions

1.
1	John Singleton Copley, The Death of the Earl of Chatham, 1779
2	Henry Fuseli, Oedipus Cursing His Son, Polynices, 1786
3	William Hogarth, A Scene from The Beggar's Opera, 1728/1729
4	Benjamin West, The Battle of La Hogue, c. 1778
5	Benjamin West, The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, 1791
6	Richard Wilson, Solitude, c. 1762/1770
2.
7	Joseph Wright, The Corinthian Maid, 1782-1784
8	Joseph Wright, Italian Landscape, 1790