OPERATION URGENT FURY II

Friday 4/15/16 Still Life in Studio – daguerreotype The Stone Breakers – Courbet Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art – Daumier Olympia – Manet The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel The Horse in Motion - Muybridge

PHOTOGRAPHY: A NEW 19TH CENTURY ART FORM

(#110) STILL LIFE IN STUDIO LOUIS-JACQUES-MANDÉ DAGUERRE, Still Life in Studio, 1837. Daguerreotype One of the first plates Daguerre produced after perfecting his new photographic process Still life inspired by painted still lives, like vanitas paintings Variety of textures: fabric, wicker, plaster, framed print New art form inspired by older art forms Daguerreotypes have a shiny surface with great detail

Industrial Revolution brought extensive technological changes and increased exposure to other cultures. Because of the rapidity of these changes, Western cultures developed an acute sense of the world’s lack of permanence. The Darwinian idea of evolution and Marx’s emphasis on a continuing sequence of conflicts reinforced this awareness of a constantly shifting reality Modernists artists sought to capture the images and sensibilities of their age. However, modernism goes beyond simply dealing with the present and involves the artist’s critical examination of the premises of art itself. Rather than the traditional approach of the academies where artists used art to conceal the medium, modernism used art to call attention to art -- the limitations that constitute the medium of painting (the flat surface, pigment, etc.) REALISM The Realists are generally seen as the first Modernist art movement. Realist artists argued that only the things people can see for themselves are “real.” “Show me an angel, and I’ll paint one.” Gustave Courbet, 1861 In scrutinizing the world around them the Realists expanded their repertoire of subject matter beyond established themes & embraced the mundane & trivial 1. Realism was a movement which developed in France around midcentury 2. Focus on everyday life 3. Disapproval of historical and fictional subjects -> these were neither real and visible nor of the present

(#113) THE STONE BREAKERS GUSTAVE COURBET, The Stone Breakers, 1849. Oil on canvas, 5’ 3” x 8’ 6”. Formerly at Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (destroyed in 1945) COURBET was a leading figure of the Realist movement Realists portrayed objects and images that had previously been considered unworthy of depiction - > the mundane and trivial, working class laborers and peasants Rural menial laborers -> young and old -> palette of dirty browns and grays -> not romanticized or idealized -> direct and accurate

JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET, The Gleaners, 1857. Oil on canvas, approx. 2’ 9” x 3’ 8”. Louvre, Paris The hard lot of the country poor -> depicts the lowest level of country life was impoverished women -> picking up the remainders of grain in a field after the harvest Many saw Millet’s sympathetic, quiet , and dignified portrayal of the poor as a political statement -> the prosperous classes reacted with disdain and suspicion

(#114)NADAR RAISING PHOTOGRAPHY TO THE HEIGHT OF ART HONORÉ DAUMIER, Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art, 1862. Lithograph, 10 3/4” x 8 3/4” The earliest photographic processes were the DAGUERREOTYPE and the CALOTYPE Photography spread quickly and technological advance followed The growing and increasingly powerful middle class embraced the new medium and its lower cost The greatest of the early portrait photographers was Nadar So talented was he at capturing the essence of his subjects that the most important people in France flocked to his studio to have their portraits made

ÉDOUARD MANET, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), 1863 ÉDOUARD MANET, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), 1863. Oil on canvas, approx. 7’ x 8’ 10”. Musée d’Orsay, Paris Edouard Manet was a pivotal figure during the 19th century His work was critical for the articulation of Realist principles -> his art played an important role in the development of Impressionism in the 1870s His masterpiece Le Dejeuner sure l’herbe outraged the public with its portrayal of a nude women sitting with fashionably clothed men in a Parisian park -> this was not a traditional pastoral scene The style of the painting prompted severe criticism -> Manet moves away from illusionism -> he used colors to flatten form and draw attention to the painting surface The style and the unorthodox subject matter made this work exceptionally controversial EDOUARD MANET

ÉDOUARD MANET, Olympia, 1863. Oil on canvas, 4’ 3” x 6’ 3” ÉDOUARD MANET, Olympia, 1863. Oil on canvas, 4’ 3” x 6’ 3”. Musée d’Orsay, Paris Created a scandal at the Salon of 1865 Inspired by Titian’s Venus of Urbino and similar nudes by Goya and Giorgione Figure is cold and uninviting -> no mystery, no joy Olympia was a common “professional” name for prostitutes in the 19th century Olympia meets the viewers eye with a look of cold indifference -> maid delivers flowers from a client Shamelessness, moral depravity, race and racial divisions -> all of this made the painting explosive (#115) OLYMPIA

(#118) THE VALLEY OF MEXICO FROM THE HILLSIDE OF SANTA ISABEL Jose Maria Velasco, The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel, 1882, oil on canvas Watch Khan Academy video Panoramic landscape -> close realistic depiction of botany, geology, meteorological detail Mother and child in the foreground -> they seem to be moving away from the city In the background is Mexico City with receding remnants of the original lake, volcanoes on the far left

(#117) THE HORSE IN MOTION EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, Horse Galloping, 1878. Collotype print Muybridge specialized in photographic studies of the successive stages of human and animal motion -> details too quick for the human eye to see Modern cinema owes a great deal to his work This sequence of photos was commissioned the Governor of California, Leland Stanford, (BOOOO!) about whether all four feet of a horse leave the ground while galloping