Recap:

Neoclassicism vs Romanticism

2nd Half of the 19th Century –

REALISM

REALISM

• Unidealized and objective representation – Realist artists rebelled against the idealized subjects of mythical and historical painting and turned to contemporary ones

Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877)

“… painting is essentially a concrete art and must be applied to real and existing things”

• French painter

• Father of Realism

• Rejected idealization -- Believed that things should be painted as they exist

• Set out to paint only the life of his own times in the costumes of the day

• Key subject matter – Peasants & workers

Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877)

A Burial at Ornans1849-50Oil on canvas 315 x 668 cm

Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877)

A Burial at Ornans1849-50Oil on canvas

Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877)

Courbet depicts a funeral in a bleak, provincial landscape, attended by commoners of no importance. The faces are faithful portraits of the poor, each with their own expression. Dressed in rusty black, they cluster around the excavation, while the clergymen reads the Office of the Dead. Here, Courbet monumentalizes a theme that was of little significance instead of anything heroic or sublime. What Courbet now finds interesting is in his own environment; it is people – not as superhuman or subhuman actors on a grand stage, but as themselves, moved by the ordinary rhythms of modern life.

Stonebreakers

1849-50

Oil on canvas

Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877)

Stonebreakers

1849-50

Oil on canvas

Inspired by the ‘complete expression of human misery’ in an encounter with an old road worker in tattered clothes and his young assistant, Courbet asked them to pose for him in his studio. Painting the road workers life size on a large canvas, Courbet showed them absorbed in their task, faceless and anonymous, dulled by the relentless, numbingly repetitive task of breaking stone to build a road. Here, Courbet set every detail of his lowborn workers’ wretched state before the viewer.

Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877)

The Desperate Man

1844-5oil on canvas

Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877)

Courbet -- Style

• Depicted ordinary scenes from contemporary life on an epic size normally reserved for history painting

• Used the palette knife as painting tool to apply rich, thick paint (impasto) onto the canvas

Jean-Francois Millet (1814 – 1875)

• French painter inspired by the social issues raised by the 1848 Revolution

• Set out to glorify the humble country folk of France by endowing them with heroic form adapted from the art of the past

• Key subject matter: Peasants & workers

The Gleaners

1857

Oil on canvas

Francois Millet (1814 – 1875)

The Gleaners

1857

Oil on canvas

Francois Millet (1814 – 1875)

Here, Millet posed three peasants as monumental figures against the field and sky. They are bent over and going about their duties in a diligent manner. The quiet atmosphere coupled with the attention to detail contributed to the dignity Millet gave to the simplest rural task. The figures are invested with a solemn grandeur and the soft, warm tones conjure a sense of sentimentality.

The Sower1850Oil on canvas

Francois Millet (1814 – 1875)

The Sower1850Oil on canvas

Powerful and monumental, Millet’s sower strides across a newly plowed field with energy and resolution, scattering the seed for a new crop; he serves as an emblem of regeneration and of the elemental relationship between man and nature. Crude in appearance, the work provoked commentary not only on its subject matter but also on its style and technique. A critic noted that Millet “trowels on top of his dishcloth of a canvas, without oil or turpentine, vast masonries of coloured paint so dry that no varnish could quench its thirst”

Francois Millet (1814 – 1875)

Honore Daumier (1808 – 1879)

• French caricaturist & painter

• Concerned with the effects of urban industrial civilization

• Key subject matter: Political and social unrest and the sufferings of the working class

• Style: Involved building up broad forms from several washes and with strong black outlines in an almost sculptural manner

The Third-Class Carriage 1863-65

Oil on canvas

Honore Daumier (1808 – 1879)

The Third-Class Carriage 1863-65

Oil on canvas

Honore Daumier (1808 – 1879)

This unfinished work gives us a glimpse into the railway compartment of the 1860s, in which sit the poor, who can afford only third-class tickets. The commuters are presented in an unposed manner, just as how they appear to Daumier. The faces of the commuters appear tired, impersonal and blank.

The Uprising c. 1860

Oil on canvas

Honore Daumier (1808 – 1879)