Victorian Painting

The range of artistic production in the Victorian ageincluded history painting; topographical landscapes of the Continentand the Middle East; Landseer's royal portraits and heroic animalpictures; Pre-Raphaelite painting with its combined naturalism andsymbolism; Leighton's classical mythologies; and Frith's populardepictions of the leisured middle classes. Amid this great variety ofstyles and emphasis, influential critics such as Ruskin dictated thatart should be morally uplifting, an orthodoxy challenged by Whistler,Sickert, Steer and their fellows among the "London Impressionists".