>>3061848anon, it's because the invention of photography absolutely shattered humanity's perception of what art should be. before that, everybody was trying to create the most sophisticated and true to life paintings. but suddenly, that became irrelevant because photography could perfectly capture any scene. so where does drawing and painting go from here? well, it has to try to add something new to the scene. something that photography doesn't add. so that's where all these impressionist styles come in. but at some point regular people realized "wait a minute. this is just ugly, grotesque and requires no talent" so therein lies the struggle of current art to prove itself
then there is also this. it's a painting of one of the battles in bulgaria's history. the battle of shipka pass. it had an outnumbered russian and bulgarian force defend a mountain pass against a force of ottomans. this picture references a part of our national mythology. the myth of "our troops ran out of bullets so they started throwing rocks at the turks. then they ran out of rocks and they started throwing down corpses at them". it's a great myth and a grat picture and it's something that could never be captured by a photograhper, because they're forced to rely on reality.
hope this answers your question
