LONDON, ENGLAND.- The myth of the artist as heroic and rebellious, often misunderstood and suffering, is extremely potent and finds its echoes in many aspects of contemporary culture - from the rebellious poses of rock stars to the deliberate non-conformity of some of today's artists, such as Tracey Emin. But when and how did this popular perception of the artist originate?

The evolution of this archetype is the subject of the National Gallery's forthcoming exhibition - Rebels and Martyrs: The Artist in the Nineteenth Century.

The idea emerged in the late eighteenth century as part of the Romantic movement, and arguably achieved its most influential embodiment a century later in the life and work of Van Gogh and Gauguin. During the intervening years its influence was felt in the way people thought and wrote about artists and, more importantly, in the way artists thought about, and depicted, themselves.

Rebels and Martyrs: The Artist in the Nineteenth Century is the first exhibition on this important and fascinating subject. It will trace the development of the 'myth of the artist' from the birth of Romanticism through to the early twentieth century and the avant-garde - examining how artists, and those around them, responded to and exploited Romantic ideas of the artist, and how artists deliberately cast themselves, or fellow artists, as outsiders and visionaries.

'The burning need to create for oneself a personal originality, bounded only by the limits of the proprieties. It is a kind of cult of the self.' (Baudelaire)

The bohemian, the flâneur, the dandy, the artist as priest, seer or suffering martyr were all roles adopted by, or imposed upon, artists in the nineteenth century. Many of these roles still colour popular conceptions of the creative genius today. Rebels and Martyrs will bring together a wide variety of works by the key figures and groups who self-consciously forged these distinctive personas in this period - Friedrich and the Nazarenes, Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, Whistler, Van Gogh, Gauguin, the Nabis, Ensor, Munch and Schiele.

Groups such as the Nazarenes and Nabis and individuals such as Courbet, Whistler, Gauguin and Ensor assiduously developed and promoted their 'outsider' credentials through their works. Other key figures of the period, such as Delacroix and Van Gogh, responded more ambivalently to their own developing and powerful myths.

'The more I am spent, ill, a broken pitcher; by so much more am I an artist - a creative artist.' (Van Gogh)

Rebels and Martyrs will bring together more than seventy exhibits from around the world, including paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture. Each exhibit takes the figure of the creative artist as its subject - scenes from the lives of artists of the past, images of archetypes of the creative genius, genre scenes and, of course, portraits and self-portraits.

The exhibition provides an opportunity to see a number of works that have never been exhibited in the UK before, including Courbet's great declaration of Bohemian independence, 'Bonjour Monsieur Courbet' (Musée Fabre, Montpellier), Renoir's 'The Inn of Mere Anthony' (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm) and Manet's controversial portrait of Marcellin Desboutin as 'The Artist', from the Museo De Arte Moderna in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

The exhibition will also bring together for the first time three meditations by Delacroix on the theme of the solitary genius - the rarely lent 'Tasso in the hospital of St Anne', 1824 (Private Collection), 'Michelangelo in his studio', 1849-50 (Musée Fabre, Montpellier) and 'Ovid Among the Scythians', 1859 (National Gallery, London). All are, to a certain extent, projections of Delacroix's own sense of isolation throughout his career.

Rebels and Martyrs is displayed over seven rooms, examining the main themes of the exhibition: Room 1 'Hero of the Establishment'; Room 2 'Romantic Hero'; Room 3 'Romantic Myths', Room 4 'Bohemia'; Room 5 'The Dandy and Flâneur'; Room 6 'Priest, Seer, Martyr, Christ', and finally, Room 7 'Creativity and Sexuality'.

Rebels and Martyrs promises to be stimulating and startling. Not only will it include many extraordinary works of art by key figures of the nineteenth century, but by exploring attitudes towards the artist it will explore fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of artistic creation and the relationship of art to life itself - questions which remain as relevant today as they were when these works were created.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue (£25 paperback) and the 'Exile on Main Street' film season (1 July - 19 August).