1. Realism
Chapter 24-4

2. Characteristics of Realism
Belief that Literature and Art should depict life as it really was
Something of a reaction to the failed revolutions of and loss of idealism
Remember…Romanticism was highly idealistic

3. Realism in Literature France: Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
The Human Comedy: depicts urban society as grasping, amoral, brutal (characterized by Darwinian struggle for wealth and power
Gustave Flaubert ( )
Madame Bovary: portrays the provincial middle class as petty, smug, hypocritical

4. Realism in literature France continued
Emile Zola ( )
Germinal: showed the hard life of young miners in southern France
Portrayed the seemy, animalistic view of working-class life

5. Realism in Literature: England
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
Examined the ways that people are shaped by their class as well as their inner strivings, conflicts, moral choices
Tomas Hardy ( )
Tess of the d’Urbervilles: Portrayed a woman who was ostracized for having premarital sex

6. Realism in Literature: Russia
Leo Tolstoy ( )
The greatest Russian Realist
Fatalistic view of history BUT regarded love, trust, family ties as life’s enduring values
War and Peace: Story of Russian Society during the Napoleonic Wars

7. Realism in Literature: Scandinavia
Henrik Ibsen ( )
Father of Modern Drama
His plays examined the conditions of life and issues of morality…often at odds with the Victorian views of the day

8. Realism in Art
The most important artists of the 19th and 20th centuries created art for art’s sake
This includes the Romantic Period
Did not rely on patrons but sold their work to the public
Remember: Renaissance and Baroque did depend on patrons: Church, nobility

9. Realism in Art continued
France was still the center of the art world
Artists sent their work to the Paris Salon to be judged by a distinguished panel
Realists did not idealize life: portrayed life as it really was
Ordinary folk became the subjects of many paintings
Sometimes work rejected by the Salon because it was too mundane

10. Gustave Courbet coined the term, “realism” The Stone Breakers

11. Francios Millet The Gleaners

12. Honore Daumier Third Class Carriage

13. Edgar Degas Laundry Girls Ironing

14. Edouard Manet Considered the first modernist painter
Bridged realism to impressionism
Portrayal of female nudes was shocking!
Luncheon on the Grass: park setting. Female nude and two clothed males
Olympia: casual nude portrayal of a prosttitute

15. Manet

16. Manet