Abstract/Summary

The essay shows the role of art and architecture in both reflecting and shaping the idea of the nation. It shows how artists and architects were inspired by the idea of the nation and contributed to the definition of their own nations, by selecting and depicting this or that trait, which they considered to be distinctive. Artists and architects also contributed to the development of specifically national artistic and architectural styles. Artists and architects raised national self-consciousness by creating icons and symbols of the nation. They also gave a new meaning to the traditional categories of European artistic subject-matter: History, portraiture, “genre” (scenes of daily life), landscape, still-life, became “national.” Examination of European national art and architecture further shows the intertwining of the concept of the nation with the concept of democracy. Nowhere is this intertwining more visible and tangible than in the art and architecture of parliament buildings.