ABSTRACT
My theme is the visual representation of national identity. My argument is that, in painting as in film, we can see how the historicist vision of the nation, and its ethnic fund of myths, memories, symbols and traditions, is unfolded through an increasingly naturalistic mode of expression, and is made to carry an ever wider range of meanings and emotions as the visual arts are opened up to a greatly enlarged national membership. This occurred pre-eminently with the invention of the moving image and the cinematic revolution at the turn of this century; but many of the latter’s themes and modes of representation were foreshadowed in the visual art of the preceding century. In this exploratory essay, I can only attempt to show the ways in which certain national themes and historicist modes of expression in history painting have found parallels in the cinema as some directors in turn sought to evoke and portray aspects of national identity.
