The Ancient world in the 19th century
The early 19th century was a time of rapid change and the solidification of colonial power. The rise and fall of France under Napoleon occurred in this period as well as the rise of the British Empire as the defining world power of the 19th century. Part of a large amount of change in this period was due to the beginning of the industrial age which gave rise to the middle class. A group of people who now had the leisure time to write and create art and new ideas. Some of these ideas would lead to a focus on curiosities and the collection of artifacts from the ancient world by individuals known as antiquarians. While antiquarians had existed since the late 1600s by the 1800s they were uniting into cohesive groups that would eventually form the first public museums. (Christenson, 1989) While some antiquarians collected anything seeming ancient others specialized in specific areas. Following Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 and his deposing in 1815 Egypt and much of the orient became a popular region for study (Boorstin, 1983). Concurrently excavations of Rome and Greek historical sites by proto-archeologists helped fuel the interest in the ancient world with many individuals writing pamphlets, books, poems and even an opera about their interpretation of ancient events (Momigliano). A time of relative peace also occurred in the early 1800s allowing the new middle class the opportunity to travel, something that would become integral as the capstone of their children’s education. This travel would become known as The Grand Tour and would involve individuals traveling to places of historic and cultural interest to perhaps sketch, write or study. Something they could use on their return home to prove their status as an educated individual. Art in the early 1800s was comprised of a mixture of landscape art and the beginnings of the dramatic and historic art of the 1840s and 50s. As a result paintings of historical regions like Pompeii or Cairo became popular with the emphasis on the landscape or the excavations. Portrait painting with some aspect of the historic in the background or with the individual portrayed with items alluding to historic events were also common.
