Paintings depicting scenes from European history

[Ferran]

Battle of Actium (September 2, 31 BC)

Author: Lorenzo A. Castro
Year: 1672
Location: National Maritime Museum, London



Naval battle off a promontory in the north of Acarnania, on the western coast of Greece, where Octavian (known as the emperor Augustus after 27 BC), by his decisive victory over Mark Antony, became the undisputed master of the Roman world. Antony, with 500 ships and 70,000 infantry, made his camp at Actium, which lies on the southern side of a strait leading from the Ionian Sea into the Ambracian Gulf. Octavian, with 400 ships and 80,000 infantry, arrived from the north and, by occupying Patrae and Corinth, also managed to cut Antony's southward communications with Egypt via the Peloponnese.

Desertions by some of his allies and a lack of provisions soon forced Antony to take action. Either hoping to win at sea because he was outmaneuvered on land or else simply trying to break the blockade, Antony followed Cleopatra's advice to employ the fleet. He drew up his ships outside the bay, facing west, with Cleopatra's squadron behind. The ensuing naval battle was hotly contested, with each side's squadrons trying to outflank the other, until Cleopatra took her Egyptian galleys and fled the battle. Antony then broke off and with a few ships managed to follow her. The remainder of his fleet became disheartened and surrendered to Octavian, and Antony's land forces surrendered one week later.

[Ferran]

The Siege of Malta: Arrival of the Turkish Fleet, 20 May 1565

Author: Matteo Pérez d'Aleccio
Year: c. 1576
Location: Grandmaster's Palace, Valleta



The Siege of Malta (also known as the Great Siege of Malta) took place in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire invaded the island, then held by the Knights of St. John.

The siege is considered one of, if not the greatest, in military history and, from the point of view of the defenders, the most successful. However, it should not be viewed in isolation. Rather, it was the climax of an escalating contest between the Spanish and Ottoman empires for control of the Mediterranean, a contest that included a previous attack on Malta in 1551 by the Turkish corsair Turgut Reis and which in 1560 had resulted in the utter destruction of the Spanish armada by the Turks at the battle of Djerba.

[Ferran]

Cromwell at Dunbar, 1650

Author: Andrew Carrick Gow
Year: ?
Location: ?



The Battle of Dunbar (3 September 1650) was a battle of the Third English Civil War. The English Parliamentary forces under Oliver Cromwell defeated a Scottish army commanded by David Leslie which was loyal to King Charles II of Great Britain, who had been proclaimed King in Scotland on 5 February 1649.

[Ferran]

The Naval Battle of Navarino (20 October 1827)

Author: Carneray
Year: 1827
Location: National Historical Museum, Athens



Naval engagement in the War of Greek Independence against Turkey.

A fleet of British, French, and Russian ships was sent to aid Greece by intercepting supplies for the Egyptian-Turkish fleet anchored in the Navarino Bay in the Peloponnese. Shortly after it entered the harbour, the superior guns of the European fleet sent three-fourths of the larger Egyptian-Turkish fleet to the bottom and forced others aground. The defeat marked the last significant battle between wooden sailing ships and led to Turkey's evacuation from Greece.

[Crvena zvezda]

"Kosovo Maiden"


- Serbian Migrations


- Takovo Uprising


-The Crowining of Emperor Dusan


- The Wedding of Emperor Dusan


- Wounded Montenegrin

[Reltih]

Piscturesque thread. If someone posts a poem or two it would indeed turn into masterpiece thread.

[Ferran]

Joan of Arc in Prison (1431)

Author: Paul Delaroche
Year: 1824
Location: Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen



After attending the coronation of Charles VII, which her bravery had helped to bring about, Joan was captured and sold to the English in 1430. She was tried in Rouen for sorcery and idolatry and burned at the stake. Delaroche's picture is set in a Rouen prison where Henry Beaufort, Cardinal of Winchester is trying to coerce her confession. No source has been found to confirm that such a private meeting between Cardinal Beaufort and Joan ever took place, but Delaroche clearly contrived this encounter to highlight the anti-English aspect of the story. [4]

This painting exemplifies the stylistic changes that Delaroche and others brought about in the painting of history subjects from the middle of the 1820s. By contrast with the earlier “troubadour” style, with its abundance of detail and almost miniaturist technique (see Révoil, Vermay, and Menjaud), Delaroche has limited his reconstruction of the scene to a few telling details. There is still a high degree of realism, but the dramatic impact is achieved primarily through lighting, gesture, and physiognomy. The idealization characteristic of “troubadour” painting has also been consciously tempered, a fact that was noted by a contemporary critic. [5] The fierce profile and angularity of the figure of the Cardinal creates a dramatic contrast with the shrinking but stalwart Joan who lies sick on a bed of straw. The Cardinal's index finger resting on his knee has been interpreted as pointing to hell, while Joan's manacled hands are in a gesture of prayer. The historic import of the scene is stressed through the inclusion of the scribe in the background. Delaroche's imprisoned Joan had many secular counterparts in Romantic painting, but she also recalls the Baroque tradition of depicting female saints.


@Obshtestvena syvest: I celebrate your good taste, what if you post some paintings of Bulgarian history subjects?

[Marcus Marulus]

Oton Iveković: "Krunidba kralja Tomislava" (The crowning of the Croatian king Tomislav, probably in year 925.)

[Marcus Marulus]

Oton Iveković: "Dolazak Hrvata na Jadran" (The Croats' arrival to the Adriatic sea)

[Ferran]

Last Day of Pompeii (24 August, 79 AD)

Author: Karl Briullov
Year: 1833
Location: State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg



In St Petersburg the Russian painter Bryullov was among the many Romantics who turned anew to the ruins of Pompeii - originally discovered in 1748 but now the subject of fresh study and excavation - for the quintessential subject of a civilization at the point of destruction. His huge Last Day of Pompeii was finished in 1833, a year before Lord Lytton published his famous novel on the same theme. That Pompeii was obliterated by a natural catastrophe, suggestive of divine retribution, only added to its significance.

[Ederico]

More from the Great Siege of Malta.

[Ferran]

Originally Posted by Ederico

These knights look quite familiar.

[Ferran]

The Death of Elizabeth I, Queen of England (24 March, 1603)

Author: Paul Delaroche
Year: 1828
Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris



Delaroche's early work consists mainly of subjects from the Old Testament, while later he chose subjects from French and English history. He was one of the most popular painters of his time, his paintings satisfied the need for education through art and the demand for sensibility. Both his carefully researched interiors and costumes and the theatrical content made his paintings so popular. In The Death of Elizabeth I, Queen of England the cultivation of material actually distracts attention from the real subject. But this was in keeping with contemporary taste for decorative history painting, which had gone to extremes in its meticulous attention to detail in the objects, furniture, and costumes.

The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1827/28.

[Ferran]

Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (October 10, 19 AD)

Author: Benjamin West
Year: 1768
Location: Yale University Art Gallery



Based on a dramatic episode from Roman history, the scene shows the widowed Agrippina returning to Rome carrying the ashes of her assassinated husband, Germanicus. She is accompanied by her two young children, Caligula, the future emperor, and Agrippina the younger, who was to be the mother of the Emperor Nero. Agrippina has placed herself and her children in certain danger by returning to confront the Emperor Tiberius, who was widely believed to have instigated Germanicus's murder. Germanicus's popularity as a general, as well as his wife's legendary virtue, draws large crowds of sympathizers to greet her when she disembarks at Brundisium. Agrippina is one of the great monuments of neoclassicism, a style that emphasized linearity, subdued color, and uplifting classical and biblical themes. Portrayals of moral behavior, such as Agrippina's dignity and courage, were meant to inspire similar virtues in viewers. Painted for the Archbishop of York, Agrippina led to King George III's lifelong patronage of West, despite the Pennsylvania-born artist's frank American patriotism.

[Ferran]

Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy after the Kulikov Battle (September 8, 1380)

Author: Orest Kiprensky
Year: 1805
Location: The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg



Kulikovo, battle of, 1380, victory of Grand Duke Dmitri Donskoi of Moscow over Khan Mamai of the Golden Horde. The battle was fought on a plain by the Don near the present village of Kurkino, Russia, SE of Tula. Although the victory was the first Russian defeat of the Tatars, it did not eliminate Mongol rule, which endured for another century.