Im speaking specifically about any movement in painting dating between early Renaissance to the late 19th century depicting people and events prior to 1400.
Any art depicting people ranging from as recent as the Middle Ages- pivotal events in European history, battles, portraits of Christian Gothic Kings, Queens etc, to art scenically represanting figures from early Antiquity- Romans, Socrates, Plato all the good guys as well as religious paintings of Biblical accounts.
My question- how accurately did these paintings represent the people of each respective time period? In their clothing, fashion, the architecture to the weapons and armor on soldiers?
Did they just know what people wore at the time? Did they have supporting archeological evidence in the 18th century to piece together how these people dressed or how weapons and armor were made 900 years in the past when the arts from Roman Classicism were centuries lost?
Im interested in particular of art depicting figures from the middle ages as there arent any paintings from the era documenting how people looked aside from icons and byzantine mosaics which only go a small way. What about Ancient Egypt? How much of the representation in these paintings can be accepted as partially creditable fact or is only whimsy fantastic fictional aggrandizement?
