>>7993164>The 19th century was bad for its idealism and romanticism, it was anti-revolutionaryIn my opinion you're completely wrong; the 19th century was just as revolutionary and anti-idealistic as the 20th century. If it appears stale, I would argue that that's because it betrays a materialist view of the past and of mythology. For instance, Alma Tadema didn't paiint works that revered the Romans, he painted works that showed them as modern Victorians. Bougureau, who is considered by many to be the arch-sinner of 19th century painting by the modernist movement, was lowkey pushing the boundary between art and porn in his mythological scenes.
In other words, the 19th century is fully anti-idealistic, it's just that in the 19th century tastes were not abstract, so the revolutionaries pushed kitsch instead. And that's a good thing; industrial societies only learned after WW1 that ideals are just a scam invented by the old and ugly to get the young and beautiful to die for them.
The real step backwards in terms of "revolutionary" art, is when reactionary forces used WW1 to destroy art that was beautiful on the false pretence that it was consumerist and kitsch, and replace it with art that communicated nothing except the will to power of post-war demagogues; like cubism, and Italian futurism.
Anyway, have a Bouguereau girl, bet it's not the right size, but everything I have is over 6MB
