Category:Art Subjects

Through the ages artists often focused on the same subject matter over and over again. Since artists were restricted to religious art in the middle ages and always to the wishes of their patrons, the subject was often something chosen for them and often based on a biblical story. The subjects would have to have some recurring elements to refer to their continuity and often used particular symbolic iconography. They were essentially tropes and ones that often meant introducing several other tropes and the artist's skill came into the uniqueness of the depiction and how it fitted into the tradition.