Realism France

French Realism Characteristics

Against emotional swells of Romanticism, drastically reduced

emphasize hard reality (Genre scenes)

Reject historical SM ; seeing is believing

The Stone Breakers - Courbet

Oil on canvas, Genre

SM: One young, one old laborers breaking stone

Techn: Monumental scale gives ordinary people importance

Focus on ordinary people, shows endless labor, poverty, physical exhaustion

Gust of Wind - Courbet

Oil on canvas, landscape

Raw power of nature, immediate & real

Impasto

Third Class Carriage - Daumier

Oil on canvas, Genre

Social stratification

SM: Poor working class passengers crowded on a train

Techn: Soft natural light = highlights figures quietly/ sympathetically

Color palette are dull tones = reinforce hardship

Focus on working class, social inequality

Le Dejeurner Sur L’herbe - Manet

Oil on canvas, Genre

SM: 2 fully dressed men sit beside nude woman during a picnic outside

Techn: Flatted space, appears compressed

Focus on sex trade

Olympia - Manet

Oil on canvas, Portrait

SM: Woman in recline, maid brings flowers

Techn: Flattened space

Focus on modern prostitution, Olympia looks directly at viewer w/o shame

Cat = sexuality, prostitution, disease

Gare Saint Lazare - Manet

Oil on canvas, Vedute

Middle class lifestyle - isoloation in urban city

Flattened composition

Bar at Folies Berger - Manet

Oil on canvas, Vedute

Focus on urban nightlife, entertainment, isolation within crowds, emotionally distant

Techn: Complex mirror comp, intentionally distorts tradition perspective

Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood

• conservative “bubble”

• Secret society of London artists

• Gender ambiguity

• non-ideal bodies

• Members: Rossetti, Millais, Bourne-Jones

Lilith - Rossetti

Oil on canvas, Mythological

SM: Woman sits in front of mirror brushing her hair

Focus on vanity, seductive female power, Femme fatale

Luxurious hair = ideal beauty (pre raphaelite)

• Looks like Mary Magdalene hair

Thick neck

La Dia de Tolomei - Rossetti

Oil on canvas, Portrait from literature

SM: Pia de Tolomei

Flowers = mortality/beauty

Big boned structure & neck

Beata Beatrix - Rossetti

Oil on canvas, literature portrait

sm: Beatrix (Dante’s divine comedy) transformed from life to death

Cardinal = soul

Poppy = Altered state of mind

Ophelia - Millais

Oil on canvas, literature tragedy (Hamlet)

SM: Ophelia’s suicide

Beauty intertwined w/death

Nature = mortality, decay

Saturated colors

Cupid’s Hunting Fields - Burne-Jones

Cupid overcome by nymphs

Wheel of Fortune - Burne-Jones

Oil on canvas, Allegory

Twisting man similar to slaves for tomb of Pope by Michelangelo

Figures trapped by destiny

Sisyphus - Burne-Jones

Oil on canvas, History, mythology

Fate control humanity, endless struggle