19 th Century Realism

1. 19th Century Realism

2. • Realism began in France as a reaction against Romanticism (and the Salon exhibition system). Influenced by empiricism and positivism. • Empiricists believed the basis of knowledge is observation and direct experience. • Positivists believed scientific laws governed the environment and human activity, and could be revealed through careful recording and analysis of observable data • Realist artists argued that only the contemporary world - what people can see – was “real.” Accordingly, Realists focused their attention on the people and events of their own time and disapproved of historical and fictional subjects. • • The style is realistic, but so is the subject matter – the focus is on “real life” • Art for art’s sake – artists make art for the sake of doing it, without a historical, symbolic, or emotional purpose. Subject matter is depicted in direct, honest way. • Elevated images of trivial, everyday life to the level of importance of history paintings. Context “Show me an angel and I’ll paint one.” - Courbet

3. Stone Breakers Gustave Courbet, 1849. Oil on canvas. 5’3” x 8’6”. • The Frenchman Gustave Courbet shunned labels, proclaiming himself free from any movement, however, he used the term Realism to describe his art, and is now considered one of the leaders of the Realist movement. • His sincerity about closely observing and painting images of subjects previously considered not worthy of depicting (in this case, menial laborers), elevated the importance of this modern form of painting with traditional ideas of “high art” • Courbet represented in a straightforward manner two men, one old, one young, in the act of breaking stones (one of the lowest jobs in French society). • This is different from Romanticism because the artist neither idealized nor romanticized their work, but depicted their thankless toil with directness and accuracy. • The drab color palette conveys the dreariness of the task. • In 1848, French laborers rebelled against the bourgeois leaders of the Second Republic, demanding better working conditions and a redistribution of property (Marx). Although the bloody rebellion was quelled by the army in three days, the subject of labor became one of national concern. • This painting is thus timely and populist. The Stone Breakers

4. Burial at Ornans Courbet, 1849. Oil on canvas. 10’3” x 21’ 9”. • The jury for the 1855 Salon (part of the Exposition Universelle in Paris that year) rejected two of Courbet’s works, saying they were too coarse (to the point of being socialistic) and too large. • In response, Courbet boldly withdrew all of his paintings and staged his own exhibition outside the grounds, calling it the Pavilion of Realism. Courbet was thus the first artist ever known to have staged a private exhibition of his own work. • In this painting of the funeral of an ordinary man, Courbet presented the mundane realities of daily life and death, instead of the heroic, sublime, or dramatic. • The figures are in three main groups: mourning women, mourning men, and clergy. The wall of figures blocks the view of deep space, except for the distant cliffs. • In representing the ordinary funeral of one small town, Courbet represented the funerals of ALL small towns. Burial at Ornans • Realism departed from the established emphasis on illusionism, calling attention to painting as an object itself by the ways the paint was applied or composition was made. • Courbet used a palette knife to quickly apply thick paint, creating a rough surface. • Although critics at the time called his technique “primitive,” he inspired the styles of the Impressionists.

5. The Gleaners Jean-Francois Millet, 1857. Oil on canvas. 2’ 9” x 3’8”. • Millet, who came from a peasant family, also depicted the life of menial laborers (although his depictions are more sentimental than Courbet’s). • The three women shown here are gleaners, members of the lowest economic rung of society, who would receive permission from local landowners to “glean” any leftover wheat after the harvest. The work was tedious, dirty, and backbreaking. • To be close to his rural subjects, Millet settled near the village of Barbizon in the forest of Fontainbleu. Several other artists also did this, and they are collectively known as the Barbizon School. They specialized in detailed pictures of forest and countryside. • The French middle and upper class, in the time following the 1848 rebellion, reacted to his work with disdain and suspicion. • Middle class land owners, who often did not grant permission to glean, felt especially antagonized. • The middle class linked the poor with the dangerous, newly defined working class and socialism, which was finding outspoken champions in Karl Marx, Friedrich Engles, Emile Zola, and Charles Dickens. • • • The Gleaners

6. Third-Class Carriage Honoré Daumier, 1862. Oil on canvas. 2’2” x 3’ • Daumier was more open about the political meanings of his artworks, oftentimes creating works that were obvious criticisms of the misbehavior of the rich and powerful (leading to his incarceration). • In this unfinished painting (notice the subtle grid), Daumier depicted the cramped and grimy third-class (least expensive ticket) railway cars of the 1860s. • Whereas first- and second-class carriages had private, closed compartments, third-class riders crammed together on long benches. • The masses of 19th century industrialization were Daumier’s interest. • To make them seem more realistic, he did not have them “pose,” but rather showed them as they would ordinarily appear – faces vague, impersonal, and blank, creating a psychological barrier to make up for the lack of a physical one. • The masses of poor city-dwellers seem anonymous, insignificant, and patient with their lot in life that could not be changed. Third-Class Carriage

7. Rue Transnonain Daumier, 1834. Lithograph. 1’ x 1’5” • Like Durer, Rembrandt, and Goya before him, Daumier spread his messages through easily reproduced prints. • Daumier’s preferred printing method was a new technology called lithography. • Lithography – A printing technique using the chemical repellence of oil and water. The artist draws onto a smooth stone surface with a greasy, oil-based crayon, then wipes the stone with water. The water clings only to the un-drawn areas. Then the artist rolls on ink, which sticks only to the waxy areas, not the wet areas. The inked stone can then be printed onto a paper. • Lithography was an easier and cheaper method of printmaking than etching/engraving, and enabled a wider range of artists to publish drawings. • In Rue Transnonain, Daumier depicted a horrifying event that happened on the Parisian street Rue Transnonain. When an unknown sniper killed a civil guard (who was part of a government force to suppress a worker demonstration), the other guards stormed the building and massacred everyone inside. • Unlike Goya, Daumier depicted the quiet, grisly aftermath, rather than the drama of the execution. Rue Transnonain Lithography

8. • The most popular woman artist of the 19th century was Rosa Bonheur. She was the winner of the gold medal at the Salon of 1848, and she was the first woman officer in the French Legion of Honor (a recognition of merit, like being knighted in England). • Bonheur received her artistic training from her father, who was a proponent of Saint-Simonianism, an early 19th century utopian socialist movement that championed the education and enfranchisement of women. • As a result of her father’s influence, Bonheur believed that as a woman and an artist, she had a special role to play. • She preferred painting with a Realist attention to accuracy, but instead of depicting social struggles, she focused on domestic animals, such as horses, cows, and sheep. • She closely studied the anatomy of horses at the great Parisian horse fair as well at local slaughterhouses. • In The Horse Fair, she depicts the sturdy farm Percherons (a breed of horse) on parade with their grooms, to show them off to prospective buyers. • The powerful majesty of the horses is palpable, and many engraved reproductions of this painting were sold, making it one of the most popular works of the century. The Horse Fair The Horse Fair Rosa Bonheur, 1855. Oil on canvas. 8’ x 16’7.

9. Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) Manet, 1863. Oil on canvas. 7’ x 8’8” • Eduoard Manet is not to be confused with the Impressionist painter Claude Monet (although Manet’s style did influence Impressionism). • Manet was consistent with Realist principles in this artwork by depicting the four figures (one nude) without idealization, separating it from nude pastorals of the past. • The two men (probably Manet’s brother, with the cane, and a sculptor friend) are dressed in fashionable 1860s Parisian attire. • The nude woman (Manet’s favorite model at the time) gazes unabashedly at the viewer, without shame or flirtatiousness. • The subject matter of the painting shocked critics. • Manet sought to move away from illusionism and call attention to the flatness of the painting surface by summing up the wide range of real values to only a few lights and darks, creating a high contrast look. • The figures and background are painted more loosely, with soft edges, while the picnic items are in sharp focus. • The painting style looked crude & unfinished to critics. • Manet attempted to critique the history of painting by including references to history paintings, portraiture, pastoral scenes, and religious paintings. Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe

10. Olympia Édouard Manet, 1863. Oil on canvas, 4’3” x 6’2”. • Olympia was even more scandalous. • The image depicts a young, white prostitute, reclining on a bed while being handed flowers from an admirer by her black maid. • Depictions of prostitutes was not unheard-of at the time; it was the matter-of-fact, cool indifference of Olympia’s direct eye-contact that scandalized viewers. • The contrast between Olympia and the maid also pointed out racial divisions. • The French public perceived Manet’s inclusion of both a black maid and a nude prostitute as evoking moral depravity, inferiority, and animalistic sexuality. • Viewers were also bothered again by Manet’s style, with its rough brush strokes and abrupt shifts in value. Olympia

11. • Realism was also popular in the United States. • Homer joined the Union campaign as an artist-reporter for Harper’s Weekly during the American Civil War. • Although Veteran in a New Field seems like a simple depiction of a farmer harvesting wheat, it is a commentary on the effects and aftermath of America’s catastrophic national conflict (which ended earlier that year). • The man is identifiable as a veteran by his uniform and canteen on the ground in the lower right, indicating that he has “cast aside” his former role of soldier to be a farmer. • America’s ability to smoothly transition from war to peace, with soldiers returning to productive employment, was evidence of its national strength. • What, in this painting, is also a symbol of death, reminding the viewer of the deaths of all the soldiers and Abraham Lincoln during the war? • Many of Homer’s paintings also depict nature, such as Fox Hunt, which shows a group of crows, grown aggressive with hunger, preparing to attack a fox. • The reversal of hunter/hunted (a fox usually would hunt birds) reflects the popular Darwinist ideal of the survival of the fittest. Veteran in a New Field Veteran in a New Field Winslow Homer, 1865. Oil/canvas. 2’ x 3’2” The Fox Hunt

12. The Gross Clinic Thomas Eakins, 1875. Oil/canvas. 8’ x 6’6”. • Philadelphia-born Thomas Eakins’s work reflects his desire to record the realities of the human experience. • Eakins studied both painting and medical anatomy. • This painting depicts the renowned Dr. Samuel Gross in the operating amphitheater of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia (where the painting hung until 2006). • Dr. Gross is leading an educational operation on a man with a bone infection in his leg. Around Dr. Gross are several colleagues, the patient’s mother, and an anesthetist, who holds a cloth over the patients face. Anesthetics (a recent invention) had greatly improved doctor’s ability to do surgery. • The subject of the painting, with its direct depiction of reality, reflects American taste for honesty and truth, as well as the increasing faith that scientific and medical advances could enhance and preserve lives. • The image proved too real for some critics, who viewed it with squeamishness. • Eakins’ belief in careful observation and scientific knowledge led him to closely study anatomy as well as motion of the human body (collaborated with the photographer Eadweard Muybridge). The Gross Clinic

13. • Henry Ossawa Tanner was an African American artist who studied art with Eakins before moving to Paris. • Tanner combined Eakins’ belief in careful study from nature with a desire to portray the dignity of the life of the working people from his home town in Pennsylvania. • What is the mood of this painting? • The grandfather, grandchild, and table objects are depicted with careful detail, but the rest of the room dissolves into loose strokes of color and light. • Expressive lighting reinforces the painting’s reverent spirit, with deep shadows intensifying the man’s devout concentration, and golden light pouring in the window to illuminate the quiet expression of thanksgiving on the child’s face. • Influenced by Rembrandt. The Thankful Poor The Thankful Poor Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1894. Oil/canvas. 3’ x 3’8”. The Banjo Lesson

14. Forever Free Edmonia Lewis 1867. Marble. 3’5” tall. • Edmonia Lewis was the daughter of a Chippewa mother and African American father who produced work stylistically similar to Neoclassicism, but depicting contemporary Realist themes. • Lewis carved Forever Free while living in Rome, surrounded by examples of classical and Renaissance art. • The statue depicts two freed African American slaves. • The man stands with classical contrapposto. He holds his left hand up, on which dangles a broken manacle (handcuff), referencing his previous servitude. • This statue was carved four years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and was immediately read as an abolitionist statement. • However, it may also be a statement about gender relationships in the African American community, with the woman kneeling in a position of subordination. • Lewis’ accomplishments as a sculptor show the increasing access to training for women. She was educated at Oberlin College (the first American college to grant degrees to women), and financed her trip to Rome by selling marble medallions and busts. Forever Free

15. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit John Singer Sargent, 1882. Oil/canvas. 7’4” square. • John Singer Sargent was an expatriate American artist who studied in Paris then settled in London, where he was known for painting portraits and being a cosmopolitan gentleman. • Sargent developed a looser Realist portrait style than Eakins, in which he layered thin coats of paint. • This portrait of his friend Edward Boit’s four daughters was stylistically influenced by Velasquez’ Las Meninas. • The four girls appear in a hall and small drawing room in their Paris home, where they seem at ease amongst the Japanese vases, the red screen and the fringed rug, whose scale emphasizes the children’s small size. • Sargent must have known the Boit daughters well, as they appear relaxed and trustful. • From youngest to eldest, Sargent was able to capture the transition of young innocence. The youngest appears emotionally open and wondering. The ten-year old is shown with a sense of grave artlessness, while the two eldest pose with the sense of self-consciousness of adolescents. • The casual positioning of the figures gives a sense of spontaneity, echoing the Realist belief that the artist’s job is to record modern people in modern contexts. • • Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

16. Ophelia John Everett Millais, 1852. Oil/canvas, 2’6” x 3’8”. • In England, a small movement formed against the popular Realists, known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. • The Pre-Raphaelites sought to create fresh and sincere art, free from what they considered the tired and artificial manner propagated by the followers of Raphael. • They also disliked the painterly influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, preferring instead a crisp, detailed depiction. • The Pre-Raphaelites chose not to depict the scenes from real life that the Realists focused on, painting instead historical, fanciful, or fictional subjects. They also disliked the ugliness of materialism and industrialization, and favored the spirituality and idealism of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance. • John Everett Millais was one of the three men who founded the PRB in 1848, and was known for his realistic detail. • Ophelia depicts the character from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who drowns herself after going mad. • The model for Ophelia was the wife of another Pre-Raphaelite, Dante Rossetti, who painted Beata Beatrix. • Beata Beatrix is a character from Dante’s Vita Nuova, who ismystically transported to Heaven. It is also a tribute to his wife who overdosed on opium. The red dove is a messenger of love & death, and the seeds in her hand symbolize sleep and death. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Lady of Shalott J. W. Waterhouse Beata Beatrix D. G. Rossetti

17. Ugolino & His Children Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux 1865. Marble, 6’5” tall. • Although the sculptors Rodin and Carpeaux worked during the time of the Impressionists, after the heyday of the Realists, the solidity of their medium could not convey the optical sensations that were the focus of the Impressionists. As such, the focus of sculpture remained rooted in Realism. • In France, Carpeaux combined his loves of Realism, ancient, Renaissance, and Baroque sculpture. • Ugolino and His Children is based on a passage in Dante’s Inferno, in which Count Ugolino and his four sons starve to death while shut up in a tower. In Hell, Ugolino relates to Dante how, in a moment of extreme despair, he bit his hands in grief. His sons, thinking he did it because of his hunger, offered him their own flesh as food. • The figures writhe with anguish and torment, reminiscent of Laocoön and his Sons. • The densely concentrated, intertwined forms suggest the self0devouring torment of frustration and despair wracking the unfortunate Ugolino. • Carpeaux was also a great admirer of the sculptures of Michelangelo. Ugolino & His Children

18. Gates of Hell Auguste Rodin 1880-1900 (cast in 1917) Bronze. 20’10” x 13’1” • Another sculptor during the Impressionist era was Rodin. Although color was not a factor for Rodin (as it was for the Impressionist painters), he was concerned for the effect of light on sculpted surfaces. • He received the commission to create a pair of doors for a planned Museum of Decorative Arts, which ultimately never opened. After 20 years of work, Rodin still was not finished with the design at the time of his death. • The commission allowed him to choose his own subject. He chose the Gates of Hell from Dante’s Inferno, and also because he was inspired by Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise. • He elected not to arrange the design in framed panels, instead choosing to cover each of the doors with a continuous writhing mass of tormented men and women, sinners condemned to Dante’s second circle of Hell for their lust. • 200 relief figures spill out of the frames, plus separately cast figures, such as The Thinker (of which he also made a larger version) who ponders the fate of the souls below. • Swirling figures influenced by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment and Delaxroix’s Death of Sardanapalus. Gates of Hell

19. Burghers of Calais Rodin 1884-1889. Cast bronze. • Like Eakins, he studied the movement of the human form. • He often had his models move around his studio, while he made quick clay models for his later large works. • He believed that in addition to anatomy and movement, the sculptor should focus on the texture/surface of the body • Rodin was rejected from the Beaux-Arts school 3 times, but was accepted to the Petit Ecole (“Little School”), a decorative arts school. • After years of serving as an assistant, he visited Rome, where he was exposed to the expressive figures of Donatello and Michelangelo. • He began making more textured, vigorously modeled figures that conveyed a direct, un-idealized reality. • He was commissioned to create a memorial for the Hundred Years War, focused on the Burghers of Calais. The story was that Kind Edward III of England would spare the city of Calais if six leading citizens (burghers) surrendered themselves to him for execution. • Instead of showing the burghers in heroic idealized form on a high pedestal, he shows them agitated, sorrowful, and despairing. How does he accomplish this? Burghers of Calais

20. Reading room of the Bibliothéque Sainte-Geneviéve Henri Labrouste, 1843-1850. Paris. • This library is an interesting mix of Renaissance revival style and modern cast-iron construction, which had been used in bridge construction, and now was being used in buildings (because it enabled buildings to be made larger, stronger, and more fire resistant). • The façade with arched windows recalls Renaissance palazzo designs, but Labrouste exposed the structure’s metal skeleton on the interior. • The lower story contained the book stacks; the upper story contained a spacious reading room. • The reading room was under a pair of barrel vaults, roofed in terracotta and separated by a row of slender cast-iron columns on concrete pedestals. • The columns are Corinthian, and support the iron roof arches pierced with intricate vine scroll ornamentation. • Are the vine scrolls cast or wrought iron? • Although Labrouste was willing to use the new material of iron in his building, his design shows the reluctance of architects to change from previous architectural styles, even though the new material of iron allowed them more freedom. Bibliothéque Sainte-Geneviéve

21. Crystal Palace, London, England Joseph Paxton, 1850. • Completely “undraped” construction first became popular in the greenhouses (or “conservatories”) of English country estates. • Joseph Paxton built several of these conservatories of metal and glass, and, encouraged by their success, applied the system to a design he submitted for the competition to design the hall to house the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, organized to present “works of industry of all nations.” • He won the commission, and built the exhibition building, the Crystal palace, with prefabricated parts. This enabled workers to build the fast structure in the unheard-of time of six months, and to dismantle it quickly at the exhibition’s closing. • The plan was based on Roman and Christian basilicas, with a central flat-roofed “nave” and a barrel-vaulted crossing “transept.” • The design was large enough to house the large exhibits, which included large farm machinery, trees, and fountains. Crystal Palace

22. Eiffel Tower Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, Paris, 1889. 984 feet tall • Iron (and by 1860, steel) made buildings larger, stronger, and more fire resistant. • The Realist impulse also encouraged architectural designs that honestly expressed a building’s purpose, rather than elaborately disguising its function. • Jolted the architectural profession into a realization that modern materials and processes could generate a completely new and innovative style. • Transparency of the framework blends the ideas of indoor vs. outdoor space, which became an important theme in 20th century architecture. • Eiffel was also known designing exhibition halls, bridges, and the interior armature (framework) for France’s give to the United States, the Statue of Liberty. • This tower was designed for an exhibition in Paris in 1889, and is an important contribution to the development of the “skyscraper.” • The iron structure is supported by four large concrete bases (one at each foot). • The heavy horizontal girders are softened by the graceful archway, as well as the upward curve. Eiffel Tower

23. Marshall Field Wholesale Store Henry Hobson Richardson Chicago, 1885. Demolished 1930. • Although iron is fire-resistant, it is not completely impervious to high temperatures, as proved by a series of disastrous fires in New York, Boston, and Chicago in the 1870s. • Architects began encasing an iron framework within stone masonry, getting the structural strength of the iron and the fire –proofing of the stone. • Henry Hobson Richardson used the new building techniques in combination with the round arches and heavy rusticated masonry walls of his favorite architectural period – Romanesque (his style was “Richardsonian Romanesque”). • His most famous building is the Marshall Field Wholesale Store, a vast building which encompassed an entire city block. • The design of this building is reminiscent of an Italian palazzo, but it lacks the ornamentation (no finials, balustrades, or cornice), creating a straightforward, “honest” design. • The horizontal sweep of the window ledges accentuates the long horizontality of the building. Marshall Field Wholesale Store

24. • A number of factors influenced the rise (literally) of the American skyscraper: • stronger materials (steel) • invention of the elevator • high price of real estate + crowded cities = developers stacking more housing on one piece of land. • After the fire of 1871 in Chicago, a boom of construction lead by young architects who utilized steel-framed buildings became known as the Chicago School of architecture. • Sullivan trained at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the first architectural degree program in the U.S.) and the School of Beaux-Arts in Paris. • In the Wainwright building, Sullivan followed his motto, “form ever follows function,” by designing a U-shaped building. - The center of the U was glass, lighting the interior of the building. - The bottom floor was intended for shops, and had large display windows. - The second floor was for the offices for the shops, and also had large windows. - The next seven floors were offices. The top floor contained the building’s utilities. • The terracotta-covered steel framework featured some decorative elements: • A decorative relief of tendril-like swirls around the cornice • Thicker than necessary corner piers to accentuate the verticality Louis Henry Sullivan Wainwright Building Louis Henry Sullivan. St. Louis, Missouri, c. 1890.

25. Guaranty (Prudential) Building Louis Henry Sullivan. Buffalo, NY, 1895. • Sullivan’s Guaranty (Prudential) Building also contains restrained decorative flourishes, which served to connect commerce with culture, and gave a sense of refinement and taste to the white-collar offices contained within. • This building is also a steel framework with a terracotta exterior. • The imposing scale of the building and the regularity of the window placements served as an expression of the large-scale, refined, and orderly office work taking place inside. • There are decorative flourishes on the cornice and piers on the exterior, as well as on the stairway balustrades, ceiling, and elevator cages inside. • Again, the bottom two levels are reserved for the street-level shops and their offices. Louis Henry Sullivan