Nineteenth Century Painting

In Great Britain, France and many other countries, the Nineteenth Century was a time of rapid social change. Industrialisation was changing the face of the land, people moved in droves from the countryside to towns and cities, and ideas of what it meant to be a citizen, or simply a human being were transformed. In 1800 people believed in witches, destructive weather was thought to be sent by God, and surgeons let blood to cure the sick. In 1900 steam locomotives transported people at speeds previously unheard of, transatlantic telegraphy was unremarkable, and X rays had been discovered.