Realism and Impressionism

notes, images, and important information from the lecture, ☆= image potentially used on exam

Movement: Realism

Date: mid-19th century to early 20th century, emerges after the Revolution of 1848, develops during the Second Empire of Napoleon III

Info:

• “history painting about real life”

• Considered the first modern art movement
  -1st time everyday life & the modern world are suitable subjects for art

• Struggle for democracy
  -French society struggles to establish democracy
  -Realists establish a democratic art

  -Mid 19th Century Paris = perpetual state of revolution

• Breaks away from the official art academy - the Salon
  

Characteristics:

• Modern subjects & moments of everyday life
  -Elevation of the reality of the working class into the realms of high art
  -Gritty detail

Artists:

• Gustave Courbet

• Edouard Manet

2 Influences on Realism

Invention of photography:

-what will be the artist’s purpose if cameras can capture reality

-artists begin to consider the materials- ie this is paint on a canvas not necessarily a window to the world

Satire:

-the emergence of mass media critiquing those in power

-visual language emerges

Socio-Historic Foundations of Modern Art + Formal Changes

Socio-Historic Foundations of Modern Art:

a. Shift from mercantilism to capitalism (from national trade to private

production)

b. Beginnings of Industrialization

c. Rise of the Bourgeoisie Class

d. Lead to:

i. Birth of Art Market

ii. Rising popularity of Art Critics

iii. Increasing emphasis on the artist’s expression rather than

tradition

e. Beginnings of Colonialism & Imperialism

Formal Changes:

a. Move away from illusionism

b. Emphasis on 2D of canvas & paint

c. Emphasis on subjects of everyday life

Communist Manifesto, 1848

• written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

• political pamphlet published in 1848 that lays out the principles of communism

• It argues for the class struggle between the bourgeoisie (capitalist class) and the proletariat (working class)

• emphasizes that the struggles of the working class against exploitation are crucial for societal change

Charles Baudelaire

art critic of the 19th century

“Artist should look at the reality and brutality of modern life in all its color, nature with all its imperfections - that should be the challenge to the modern painter not the didactic idealization of the past. The new generation should forge a new path.”

Age of Imperialism (1870 - 1914)

Period marked by European powers, the US, and Japan expanding empires in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, driven by economic and political ambitions.

☆Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers, 1849

Movement: Realism

Date: 1849

Artist: Gustave Courbet

Title: The Stonebreakers

Info:

huge controversy at the Salon (unacceptable subject matter and large-scale depiction of working-class people), depicts a younger and an older man engaging in back-breaking labor as seen in their stances and the hay beneath the older man’s knee, intimate, as large of a scale as an important history painting (ie: of monarchs and important historical figures), challenges traditional imagery depicted on this scale and is not a portrait but is emphasizing this as an important moment via the history painting scale, you enter the painting as a viewer and are immediately stuck in labor via the foreground with blocked background visually (no space outside their labor), stylistically flat, murky paints+ dusty clothes emphasize their class, elevates working-class individuals as subjects of importance

☆Gustave Courbet, Burial at Ornans, 1849-50

Movement: Realism

Date: 1849-50

Artist: Gustave Courbet

Title: Burial at Ornans

Info:

depicts his real-life neighbors, elevation of the commoner to the importance of a history painting, removal of religiosity from a funeral scene making it an everyday life event (no depiction of Jesus as a central figure, no saving grace, normal people are mixed in with priests), children looking bored, no sense of drama, no single important figure, randomness of everyday life ex: the dog, grave is cut off at canvas edge as the entrance point - you as the viewer are the one being buried, the aristocracy would hate because they are being buried in a simple grave at a simple/boring event, death is the ultimate equalizer, realist memento mori, shallow flattened sense of perspective, frieze procession of figures that shows Courbet’s classical training

Official Salon vs. Salon des Refusés (1863)

the official Salon: annual exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, showcasing works that conformed to traditional standards of art established by the academy, govt sanctioned show

Salon des Refusés: 1863 alongside the official Salon that year, created to exhibit works that had been rejected from the official Salon, allowed for more avant-garde or non-traditional artwork to be displayed, highlighted the growing tensions between traditional artistic standards and emerging modernist movements, govt sanctioned show

☆Eduard Manet, Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), 1863

Movement: Realism

Date: 1863

Artist: Eduard Manet

Title: Luncheon on the Grass (French: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe)

Info:

viewer is a voyeur to the situation, nude woman confronting viewer with her gaze, everyday subjects but unusual for depicting activity, typically there needs to be a religious or mythology-based excuse to depict nudity but Manet doesn't have one, viewer forced to see nude female as a person and not an object because of her stare at us, nude female figure is meant to be Olympia - portrayed by known prostitute/model Victorine ie: a working-class woman, nude female figure of Venus from the same year (diff artist) is ok but not a nude female prostitute, viewer forced to encounter their desires and perversity looking at the nude female, critics hated the painting style of off perspective + visible brushstrokes + flatness + stark shadows that almost create an outline on the figures, scene references medieval compositions and pastoral subject matter- showing Manet’s classical training, was refused by the official Salon and was displayed in Salon des Refusés

☆Eduard Manet, Olympia, 1863

Movement: Realism

Date: 1863

Artist: Eduard Manet

Title: Olympia

Info:

Olympia is the prostitute/model Victorine, notes to promiscuity with the cat and her necklace, not a pornographic image despite subject matter, no invitation to “come hither”, asserts herself with gaze, hand placed over her pubis bringing attention to her nudity but not allowing you to take it, her clasp on her pubis asserts how she owns her autonomy over her body, “scaredy-cat” with arched back and flowers being brought it means someone is there, you as the viewer are the client, forced to confront your participation in the power structures regarding female figures at the salon, using common trope of lounging female figure - he chooses historic narratives to show his formal training but simultaneously question the status quo of the Paris Salon, critics hated the flattened shadows calling them dirty looking, was refused by the official Salon and was displayed in Salon des Refusés

Movement: Impressionism

Date: Develops in Paris in the 1870s & spreads to US

Info:

• Rejected the official government sanctioned exhibitions - the SALONS

• Aimed to capture the momentary, sensory effect of a scene or the IMPRESSION

• To achieve this, moved from the studio out into the streets - painted in plein air

• Like Realism, interested in everyday life
  -Unlike Realism, interested in the everyday life of bourgeoisie, not working class

• change in most important type of painting from History Painting to Landscape and Genre Painting (scene of everyday life)

• work like Monet’s Impression, Sunrise for example are on the cusp of total abstraction but it becomes anxiety-inducing and artists will revert back a little to representational subjects b4 total abstraction

Key characteristics:

• Short, broken brushstrokes

• Pure, unblended colors

• Emphasis on effects of light

• Everyday life of the bourgeoisie
  -leisure activities & public life

Artists:

• Claude Monet

• Auguste Renoir

Haussmanization, 1853-1870

• takes Paris from medieval city to modern city

• Napoleon III asks Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann to
  modernize Paris

• Haussmann is charged with bringing clean water, modern
  sewers, lighting the streets with gas lanterns, construct a
  central market & administrative buildings

• Haussmann is nicknamed “the demolisher”

• Plows down the old streets & creates wide, straight
  boulevards
  

Pros & cons of wide boulevards:

• Good for business & the flow of a growing population

• Creation of a public, urban life - place to see & be seen

• Easy for troops - repression of revolutionaries

• Displacement of the poor

☆Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872

Movement: Impressionism

Date: 1872

Artist: Claude Monet

Title: Impression, Sunrise

Info:

part of the 1st exhibition of Impressionist work, gives name to the Impressionism movement with its title, genre scene with boating on a bay with a sunrise and factories in the distance, bold colors with blue and orange as main colors, short+rushed+gestural+pronounced brushstrokes, blurry+vague+dreamlike= an impression, details don’t matter its more about the feeling of the moment, can’t feel the weight of any objects ex: the boat - everything just becomes brushstroke

Claude Monet, Boulevard des Capucines, 1873-74

Movement: Impressionism

Date: 1873-74

Artist: Claude Monet

Title: Boulevard des Capucines

Info:

buildings are grounding painting, people quickly shifting and walking about are quickly painted with visual brushstrokes, depicts grayness of the city of Paris

☆Auguste Renoir, Moulin de la Galette, 1876

Movement: Impressionism

Date: 1876

Artist: Auguste Renoir

Title: Moulin de la Galette

Info:

cafe scene- typical Renoir subject, Haussmanized Paris, socializing+drinking+dancing= leisure, warm+bright+lively with use of warm colors like yellow+depiction of light pouring in, light speckled and scattered beams acting like mini spotlights leading you through the painting, brushstrokes are quicksand reinforce the flatness ex: the woman’s clearly formed out of paint and almost disappears into the ground because not defined well

Practice Visual Analysis Comparison

Manet, Luncheon on the Grass vs. Renoir, Moulin de la Galette

Similarities:

• both disliked by the Salon

• triangular sections in compositions

• can enter into both of them

• both gatherings of people

• some or only upper-class people present

• both outdoor settings

• modern everyday moment in public

• visual brushstrokes and flatness

Differences - Manet, Luncheon on the Grass:

• Realism

• 1863

• greens, colder colors

• working- prostitute with upper-class men

• visible brushstrokes, flatness with defined outlines and stark shadows

• acknowledgment of class differences

• obviously portraits- especially Olympia/Victorine

• private event that has become public as the viewer is a voyeur

• echoes of classical training with modeling of skin, obvious triangular composition

Differences - Renoir, Moulin de la Galette:

• Impressionism

• 1876

• yellows, warmer colors

• leisure activity- not work

• highly visible brushstrokes, flatness, undefined and blurry, focus on depicting light

• no acknowledgment of class differences- all upper-class people

• no portraits

• public event with a participating viewer

Differences in male and female Impressionist artists:

Male Impressionists:

• more landscape subjects

• public spaces

• can feel freedom in public spaces

• wide cropping

Female Impressionists:

• picture ex: Berthe Morisot, On the Balcony of Eugene Manet's Room at Bougival, 1881

• familial subjects matter- more genre scenes

• intimate settings like in the home

• women can sense being watched/judged in public spaces

• tighter cropping