Civil society as we know it today emerged around 1800. The self-confident middle class founded numerous associations and educational institutions, including the Kunstgesellschaft Luzern, which created a photo archive for the general public in 1819. On the occasion of its anniversary, an exhibition dedicated to the collection will focus on that revolutionary era with special references to the Friedrich Schiller quotation: and the old forms collapse. The upheavals in society and politics also had an impact on art. This is particularly evident in the changes to the genre of the portrait, which moved from courtly pomp and ceremonial strictness to a bourgeois lifestyle and intimacy. History painters approached new themes, while religious art adopted different forms of depicting their subjects.