Battle scenes, as the title suggests, explore the subject of the war. Despite obvious similarities, battle pieces have something new to offer in every style of fine arts. Take, for instance, the selection of subjects or scenes to depict: depending on the style you might choose to explore the daily life of soldiers or the battles, the common…

fighting men or the grand generals, small military episodes, man-to-man combats or large-scale presentation of battles that changed the course of history, you might choose to depict battles on land or sea, praise the victories or condemn the war – the sky is the limit.

Classicists, for instance, chose to glorify the valour, acts of bravery and victories, the grandeur of the human spirit and the priority of duty over personal ambitions. Realists preferred to reveal the pain and misery that accompany the war. They never adorned the reality with artificial heroism and pathos.

As for romanticists, the way they saw and portrayed the war depended on who were the warring parties. They demonstrated their indignation towards the conquerors and welcomed the liberation movements – vivat to  Napoleon! Oh, they adored Napoleon… The philosophy of romanticism rests on absolute freedom as the cornerstone of the universe. This assumption led to seeing the world as the realm of chaos, and watching any event as a clash of uncontrolled forces unleashed in the wild. Chaos is something we can’t miss in the battle scenes of romanticists. Another signature card of romanticism is extravagance, novelty of the subject. Therefore you will see European artists capturing battles that thundered in far off countries, preferably Eastern ones, or the battles that took place in olden times – hence the unusual colorful clothes and picturesque flamboyant landscapes.

Romanticists worshipped movement and dynamics. You can easily notice that it is not people but passions and struggle that were represented in their paintings. Battles are a great source of material for that matter. You will never find static figures or ships lining up for the battle in the flat calm sea as it is common with realist and classicist paintings. Instead the sea will be tormented, the horses will burn the earth, and the people will be swirling in the desperate chaos of barricades, fire, smoke and rampant horses. Romantic battle scenes share the peculiarities of the style – they are flamboyant in colour and action, with a special treatment of the brown, this colour was sacral to romanticists as the patina of time, as the colour of history itself.