2 papers Art history visual analysis (5-7 pages)
Reborn0804
unit2_realism.pptART HISTORY 132
Realism
Realism
- context: political
- King Napoleon III
- nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte; tried to overthrow Louis Philippe (2x)
- sentenced to life in prison; escaped in 1846 to England
- returned to FR w/ onset of [February] Revolution of 1848
- elected President of new Second Republic (1848); dismantled it (1852) ; replaced it w/ Second Empire
- context: political
- Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto (1848)
- argument: history determined by material wealth & class struggle (proletariat vs. bourgeoisie/capitalists)
- context: cultural
- Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
- significance: father of modern criticism
- subjects: commonplace, ordinary event
- no longer to simply reveal beauty & sublime; nor beholden to God
- “He shall be the true painter who can pull out of everyday life its epic side….”
Gustave Courbet
(1819-1877)
- biography: rural upper-bourgeoisie
- training: self-educated
- copied Spanish, Dutch & Venetian masters @ Louvre
- Baroque lighting (e.g., Caravaggio, Rembrandt)
- politics: traditional Republican family
- C recently converted to Socialism
- also held pacifist views
- mature work:
- benefited from Second Republic’s liberalization of Salon
- built his own break-away pavilion next to Exposition Universelle (1855)
- mixed reviews; dismissed as joke
- approached bankruptcy before closing
- subjects: “Show me an angel, and I’ll paint one”
- to record customs & appearances of contemporary society
- rejects historical painting of grand events
- no exotic locales
- numerous self-portraits, hunting scenes, landscapes, genre paintings
Courbet
- The Stonebreakers (1849)
- narrative: Socialist ideology
- setting: rural France
- figures: anonymous
- elderly road mender
- young assistant
- depicted as faceless working animals
- scale: monumental
- composition: frieze-like
- color: muted natural tonalities
- light/shadow: modified tenebrism
- perspective: aerial
Courbet’s The Stonebreakers
(1849)
Courbet’s The Burial
(c. 1850)
(Left) COURBET’s French Realist Courbet’s The Burial (c. 1850)
vs.
(right) Early Roman Empire “Spoils of Jerusalem”
from the Arch of Titus (c. 75 CE)
Jean-François Millet
(1814-75)
- The Sower (c. 1850)
- theme: class distinction in aftermath of Revolution of 1848
- subject: laboring tasks of peasantry vs.urban middle class
- narrative: NT (Mark 4: 1–9,13-20)
- figure: heroic/allegorical
- monumental scale
- dramatic foreshortening
- portrayal of nature:
- atmospheric qualities
- golden glow of sunlight
Millet’s The Gleaners
(c. 1850)
Rosa Bonheur
(1822-1899)
- biography: oldest child in a family of artists
- early adherent of Saint-Simonianism
- Christian-socialist sect
- promoted education of women alongside men
- prophesied coming of a female messiah
- training: French Academy
- prohibited women from studying nude model
- instead, factually depicted farm animals
- themes: rural scenes
- virtue of toil & common life of agrarian life & peasantry
- industrialization & mass migrations to cities created ready market for such images
- process:
- zoological studies
- detailed sketches in countryside & slaughterhouses
Bonheur’s Plowing
(1849)
Realism: England
- Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)
- aim: revolution against official art of Royal Academy
- style: naturalistic
- precise realism in smallest detail
- unidealized land- or cityscapes
- figures: based on real model w/ real proportions
- themes: invested w/ moral dignity
- masterpiece: Work (c. 1850-65)
- subject: Irish immigrant community in post-Famine London
- theme: moral dilemmas associated w/ class disparity
- issues: emigration, labor, joblessness & crime
- figures: “heroic” laborers of modern life
Brown’s Work (c. 1850)
Realism: United States
- Thomas Eakins (1844-1916)
- The Gross Clinic (1875)
- theme: empiricism & scientific progress
- see Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson
- rejected by art jury
- taught anatomy & figure drawing
- disapproved of drawing from plaster casts
- used nude model
- allowed female students to study male nude
- used photographs in the classroom
- light/shadow: Baroque revival
- chiaroscuro
- tenebrism (modified)
EAKINS’ Realist The Gross Clinic (1875)
vs.
REMBRANDT’s Dutch Baroque The Anatomy Lesson (1632)
Realism: United States
- Tanner (1856-1925)
- Banjo Lesson (c. 1890)
- training: Eakins’ student before moving to Paris
- subject: dignity of African-Americans
- figures: realistic
- composition: dynamic
- color: warm hues
- light/shadow: chiaroscuro
- brushwork: painterly
Realism: United States
- Winslow Homer (1836-1910)
- biography: American
- context: American Civil War artist- reporter for Harper’s Weekly
- Reconstruction Era (c. 1870s)
- themes: sunny, optimistic pictures
- intense observation & sense of identification w/ landscape
- nostalgia for a simpler, more innocent time
- young women & children enjoying themselves outdoors
- figures: less individual, more universal
Homer’s The Veteran in a New Field
(1865)
Homer’s The Veteran in a New Field (1865)
vs.
O’Sullivan’s Harvest of Death (1863)
Homer’s Snap the Whip
(c. 1875)
IMAGE INDEX
- Slide 2: Photograph of Karl Marx.
- Slide 5: COURBET. The Stone Breakers (c. 1850), Oil on canvas, 5’3” x 8’6” in., destroyed (1945).
- Slide 6: COURBET. Burial at Ornans (1849), Oil on canvas, approx. 10’ x 22’, Louvre, Paris.
- Slide 7: MILLET. The Sower (c. 1850), Oil on canvas, 40 x 32 ½ in., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
- Slide 8: MILLET. The Gleaners (c. 1855), Oil on canvas, 2’9” x 3’8” in., Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
- Slide 10: BONHEUR. Plowing in the Nivernais: The Dressing of the Vines (1849), Oil on canvas, 5’9” x 8’8”, Musee d’Orsay, Paris.
- Slide 12: BROWN. Work (1852-65), Oil on canvas, City Art Gallery, Manchester, England.
IMAGE INDEX
- Slide 13: EAKINS. The Gross Clinic (1875), Oil on canvas, 8’ x 6’5”, Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia.
- Slide 14: (Left) EAKINS’ Realist The Gross Clinic (1875); and (right) REMBRANDT’s Dutch Baroque The Anatomy Lesson (1632).
- Slide 15: TANNER. The Banjo Lesson (1893), Oil on canvas, 49 x 35 ½ in., Hampton University Museum, Virginia.
- Slide 17: HOMER. The Veteran in a New Field (1865), Oil on canvas, 24 1/8 x 38 1/8 in., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
- Slide 18: HOMER, Winslow. Snap the Whip (1872), Oil on canvas, 22 ¼ x 36 ½ in., The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio.
