Pp Chap30

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Realism and its Effect on European and American Painting

Chapter 30Humanities 103Instructor Beth Camp

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Romanticism to Realism

What main ideas or events caused painters to adopt a more realistic style?

Which of the following paintings seem more influenced by realism or romanticism?

Can you identify differences between American and European realist painting?

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Realistic Themes 1800-1850

Reaction against sentimentality of Romanticism

Reaction against militarism, industrialism, colonialism

Concern for natural landscapes, rural and urban = Show nature as it truly is

Social realism (women, working class themes)

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Ideals of Realism

“A painter should paint only what he can see . . . . Show me an angel and I’ll paint one.”

– Courbet (qtd. in Fiero 94)

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French Realists

Gustave Courbet, 1819-1877 Honore Daumier, 1808-1879

Which of the following paintings seem more influenced by realism or romanticism?

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Gustave Courbet, 1819-1877

Began and dominated French realism Early portraits (1844-1854) A socialist, the 1848 revolution in France

inspired his A Burial at Ornans (1849-1850)

Participant in Exhibit of the Refused

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Gustave Courbet, 1819-1877

Critics attacked Courbet’s work as vulgar and lacking in spiritual content.

Janson says Courbet’s passionate advocacy of social change (socialism) is what distinguishes his work as realism (702).

Do you agree with these two comments?

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Courbet: The Wounded Man, 1844-1854

Does this painting have a romantic or realist feeling?

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Courbet: The Meeting (1854)

Courbet painted himself on the right – and his patron on the left. Critics attacked Courbet’s assertiveness and his bohemian dress. Does this change your reaction?

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Gustave Courbet, 1819-1877

“In our so very civilized society it is necessary for me to live the life of a savage. I must be free even of governments. The people have my sympathies. I must address myself to them directly.”

– Courbet in a letter to a friend, 1850

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Courbet

Courbet: The Stone Breakers, 1849.

Subject = average workers painted life sized (painting 5’3” by 8’6”)

Heavy impasto (against academic tradition)

No emphasis on Romantic feeling Notice contrast in age of workers – too

old and too young.

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Honore Daumier, 1808-1879

French caricaturist, painter, sculptor Imprisoned for his political cartoons against

royalist government; made 4,000 lithographs Known during his life as political and social

satirist After his death, paintings more recognized

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Daumier: The Third-Class Carriage, 1863-1865

What makes this painting realist?

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Daumier

Daumier: The Uprising, 1860

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Edouard Manet, 1832-1883

Early paintings accepted by Academy until 1863: Salon de Refuses

Not a radical artist; horrified by war. Protest paintings mixed with scenes of daily life.

By 1874, leader of avant garde (Impressionists)

Work has a “snapshot” quality with optical contradictions

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Changing Perceptions of Venus

Classical paintings of Venus, inspired by Greek sculpture, have been nude.

How does Manet’s version of Venus compare to:– Venus by Renaissance artist, Titian (1538)– Venus by Romantic painter Cabanel (1863)

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Titan: Venus of Urbino (1538-39)

Even for the time of the Renaissance, this Venus challenged traditional values. The model looks directly at the viewer; the sleeping dog implies “fidelity” has gone to sleep.

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Alexandré Cabanel (French). The Birth of Venus, 1863, the same year as Manet's Olympia. Popular and typical classical composition.

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Manet: Olympia (1865)

This painting scandalized the public; her direct gaze and ribbon necklace is the mark of a prostitute; the black cat closer to a witch’s familiar.

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On Manet and Olympia

If a “. . . feebly imaginative artist has to paint a courtesan of today and takes his “inspiration” . . . from a courtesan by Titan . . . It is only too likely that he will produce a work which is false . . . From the study of a masterpiece of that time and type he will learn nothing of the bearing, the glance, the smile or the living “style” of one of [today’s] creatures.”

Baudelaire, qtd. in Stokstad 1010

What’s next? Manet’s controversial Le Dejeunder sur L’Herbe, 1863. Why is this painting so shocking to 19th Century audiences?

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Manet

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Manet

The Balcony, 1868-1869

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Manet

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Manet

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Manet

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Manet

Detail of “The Bar at the Folies-Bergere” (1882)

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Rejection of Realism?

Some painters protested the harsh realism by returning to Romanticism with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. One example of their work by John Everett Millais of Ophelia, painted in 1852.

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American Realism

Thomas Eakins, 1844-1916 Winslow Homer, 1836-1910

Can you identify differences between American and European realist painting?

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Thomas Eakins, 1844-1916

Outstanding American painter of 19th Century, studied in Paris 3 years, deeply influenced by Spanish realists

His subsequent “realist” portraits and landscapes drew little attention

Concentrated on “rowing” pictures 3-1/2 years 1870s

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Thomas Eakins, 1844-1916

“A boat is the hardest thing I know of to put into perspective. It is so much like the human figure, there is something alive about it. It requires a heap of thinking and calculating to build a boat.”

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Eakins: Max Schmitt in a Single Shell, 1871

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Eakins: The Bathers (1858)

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Eakins

The Gross Clinic, 1875

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Winslow Homer, 1836-1910

Began his career as freelance illustrator 1857 Scenes of life behind the lines a sharp contrast

to grim photographs of Civil War Visited France; returned to paint rural scenes 1881-1882 stay in fishing village transformed

his paintings

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Homer: “Lifeline” 1844

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Homer, “The Gulf Stream” 1899

How does this picture by Homer compare to Fiero’s Figure 27.6 The Slave Ship by Turner?

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What characterizes Realism?

Who are the key artists, composers or thinkers? What did they contribute?

Based on what you know now, how would you describe the difference between “romanticism” and “realism”?

How would you describe the difference between American and European realism?

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Sources

Slides from Mark Hardin’s ARTCHIVE Marilyn Stokstad. Art History. New York:

Harry N. Abrams, Publisher, 1995. H. W. Janson, History of Art, 5th ed. Harry N.

Abrams, Publisher, 1994.