18th & 19th Centuries

With the waning of the Rococo era (18th century) in the dominant artistic countries of France, Germany, Austria, and Italy, the subsequent generations of artists increasingly sought new modes of expression. While preceding epochs could be categorized into general pan-European artistic movements–Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, and Rococo–with distinct manifestations by country and city, the 19th century brought about so many artistic facets that any label other than “19th-century painting” will not suffice.

Within this single century grew such movements as Neoclassicism, Romanticism, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Nazarenes, Impressionism, Academic Realism, Fauvism, and Cubism to name a few. While M&G’s collection of 19th-century paintings is relatively small, the examples viewed here provide a quality sampling of the type of religious art created in a century when the tide of modern and abstract art would all but extinguish biblical themes from mainstream culture.