The 19th century was a pivotal period in Western history, marked by a revolutionary phase involving not only politics but art and, more broadly speaking, taste. The roots of this change date back to the 1740s, when there was a call for a new kid of art, one that would be useful and educational, both aesthetically and morally, in contrast to the frivolous and "uncommitted" tendency of the Rococo. The new model identified with ancient Greece and Rome;...