One intellectual consequence of the social and political upheavals of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe was the speculative search for meaningful patterns of historical development. Inspired by lofty notions of the artist as a poet-philosopher, a few exceptional painters joined the effort, producing grandiose schemes of “universal history.” Daniel Guernsey explores this material using four case studies: James Barry’s The Progress of Human Knowledge and Culture (1777–1784), the mural cycle that he painted for...