Realism in France

Realism in France• Emerges in France as a result of interest in science• Empiricism—knowledge based on direct observation• Positivists—philosophical school advocating for scientific approach

to understanding social and natural processes• Realists in art—did away with myth, imaginary subjects and moved

toward what was directly observed in everyday life• Realism comes about after the downfall of NeoClassicism and

Romanticism• NeoClassicism=classical and mythological subjects oriented toward

moral aim• Romanticism=explores the imagination and subjective experience,

privileges raw creativity and passion

Art 102 Fall 2011

Realism Lecture

Jacques-Louis David. Oath of the Horatii. 1784

Goya Saturn Devouring One of His Children 1819-23

John Henry Fuseli The Nightmare 1781

Cultural context of Realism

• Marx’s Manifesto of Communist Party 1847• 1848 Revolution in France– After French revolution liberates the middle class, or

bourgeoisie, everyone else remains (esp workers)– Advocated for the right of all to work– Established National Workshops for unemployed, which

were closed and caused a proletariat (“blue collar”) uprising– Uprising is suppressed– New beliefs emerge about working people as a result of

class conflict

Definition of Realism

• An avant-garde movement that focuses on representing the everyday

• Centers on the materiality of things, contemporary working class life, and urban and rural conflict

• Avant-garde=military term. “To the fore.” Advocates for the political effectiveness of art. Not art for art’s sake.

Courbet

• Rejects academic art (the training in the French Royal Academy)

• Incorporates “popular” art forms into his painting: woodcuts, prints, almanacs, songbooks. All non-elite forms

• Saw his painting as engine of revolution, capable of enacting social change

Courbet After Dinner at Ornans 1849

Courbet After Dinner at Ornans 1849

Large size (five feet) ususally Reserved for history painting

Depicts people from Courbet’s ownLife, including his sleeping father

Status of subjects is unclear—could Be bohemians (urban figures who Rebelled against established society)Or could be country folk

Won a gold medal in Salon 1849,Which gave him free access to 1850Salon.

Courbet After Dinner at Ornans 1849

Painting includes self-portrait of theArtist. Courbet often used himself as aModel.

Courbet Peasants of Flagey Returning from Fair at Ornans 1849

Gainsborough Road from Market 1767-8

Market 1767-8

Figures have little interaction

Status of figures is indeterminate-Man walking pig seems to be Bourgeois, wearing a frock coatMan in stovepipe hat (bourgeois)Is also wearing a smock (peasant)

Boundary between city and Country is blurred—class issuesExist in both spheres.

Dull colors—no fanciful nostalgiaOr romanticism

Courbet Stonebreakers 1849

Courbet Stonebreakers 1849

Painting destroyed or lost in Dresden in 1945

Another large painting—5.5 x 8 feet

Bodies are shown as tools or machines performing repetitive and alienated labor

Ages of workers suggest life cycle without progression

Courbet The Burial at Ornans 1849

Set in Courbet’s home town of Ornans, at the new cemetery22 feet long—painting is on scale of history painting, but the scene is generic, not worthy ofStatus as a history painting. Uses scale of history painting to call attention back to the popular.These are rural people dressed in their best—looking like bourgeoisOverall lack of color, with exception of the beadles in red.Flat composition recalls woodcuts. Appears primitive to critics.Rough technique—paint applied with palette knife

Courbet The Burial at Ornans 1849

Figures are disconnected from one Another

Also, not idealized. They, and the Whole painting, seem deliberatelyugly

Jean-François Millet. The Sower. 1850

Jean-François Millet. The Sower. 1850

Millet is a Romantic Realist—heroizesHis subject more than Courbet

Virtue and nobility of rural poverty

Still a realist based on focus onContemporary life and the conflictBetween urban and rural ways of life

Jean Francois Millet The Gleaners 1857

Jean Francois Millet The Gleaners 1857

Represents peasants in the actof gleaning—gathering scrapsOf wheat after the harvest

Millet member of the BarbizonSchool, other members of Which concentrated on Landscape

Representing common peasant Figures like this makes criticsWorry about insurrection

Monumentalizes the poor

Courbet The Painter's Studio-A Real Allegory 1855

This painting causes Courbet to set up Pavilion of Realism in 1955, across fromExhibition Universelle, from which he was rejected.Exhibition Universelle is fair that celebrates progress11 x 20 feetVery rough application of paint, especially on the top (swaths of brown)

Courbet The Painter's Studio-A Real Allegory 1855

Places landscape paintingOver history painting—nature Still has redemptive capacity

Painting thought of as a triptychBohemian friends on the right(the aesthetic world)Political world—exploited and Exploiters are on the left

Nude woman is muse—combinedWith landscape shows a Critical view of modernizationRampant in Exhibition Universelle

Courbet The Painter's Studio-A Real Allegory 1855

Daumier Rue Transnonain 1834

Daumier Rue Transnonain 1834

Famous for lithographsUses art for political commentary, was supporter of working classThis lithograph shows massacre by members of the guard trying to suppress demonstrationBy workers