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

John Henry Fuseli The Nightmare 1781

Cultural context of Realism Marx’s Manifesto of Communist Party 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

Large size (five feet) ususally Reserved for history painting Depicts people from Courbet’s own Life, 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 1850 Salon.

Courbet After Dinner at Ornans 1849 Painting includes self-portrait of the Artist. Courbet often used himself as a Model.

Courbet Peasants of Flagey Returning from Fair at Ornans 1849

Gainsborough Road from Market

Market

Figures have little interaction Status of figures is indeterminate- Man walking pig seems to be Bourgeois, wearing a frock coat Man in stovepipe hat (bourgeois) Is also wearing a smock (peasant) Boundary between city and Country is blurred—class issues Exist in both spheres. Dull colors—no fanciful nostalgia Or romanticism

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 cemetery 22 feet long—painting is on scale of history painting, but the scene is generic, not worthy of Status 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 bourgeois Overall 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 deliberately ugly

Jean-François Millet. The Sower. 1850

Millet is a Romantic Realist—heroizes His subject more than Courbet Virtue and nobility of rural poverty Still a realist based on focus on Contemporary life and the conflict Between urban and rural ways of life

Jean Francois Millet The Gleaners 1857

Represents peasants in the act of gleaning—gathering scraps Of wheat after the harvest Millet member of the Barbizon School, other members of Which concentrated on Landscape Representing common peasant Figures like this makes critics Worry 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 from Exhibition Universelle, from which he was rejected. Exhibition Universelle is fair that celebrates progress 11 x 20 feet Very rough application of paint, especially on the top (swaths of brown)

Courbet The Painter's Studio-A Real Allegory 1855 Places landscape painting Over history painting—nature Still has redemptive capacity Painting thought of as a triptych Bohemian friends on the right (the aesthetic world) Political world—exploited and Exploiters are on the left Nude woman is muse—combined With landscape shows a Critical view of modernization Rampant in Exhibition Universelle

Courbet The Painter's Studio-A Real Allegory 1855

Daumier Rue Transnonain 1834

Famous for lithographs Uses art for political commentary, was supporter of working class This lithograph shows massacre by members of the guard trying to suppress demonstration By workers