I. The Rise of the Modern Artist
I. The Rise of the Modern Artist
In the hierarchies of art, historical painting has occupied the highest position. These were large-format works with many characters, which earned the artist his greatest recognition. But in an artistic world that was no longer dominated by the symbolism of the ancien régime, so much as by the fickleness of the market and the fleeting present, there was no longer room for those great ‘moralising machines’. Driven by the advent of journalism and photography and the need to preserve his status in face of these new media, the modern artist replaced historical themes with current affairs issues: the colonial war, the class struggle, etc.