Realism in 19th Century European Art

Realism

In the early- to mid-1800s, Europe began undergoing a major transformation. The Industrial Revolution, as it is known by historians, radically changed the manner in which the world produced its goods. It also altered society from primarily agricultural to industrial and manufacturing. This new revolution brought significant levels of poverty and despondency to the new working class. The artistic form of Realism emerged as a result of these socio-economic changes. It sought to correctly portray the conditions and hardships of the poor with the hope of improving their living situations. While Romanticism glorified nature, Realism visualized the industrial world as a blight on society. Likewise, while the Romantics visualized life in a sentimental fashion, the Realists portrayed the second half of the nineteenth century in stark reality. Through their artwork, painters such as Gustave Courbet transmitted the beliefs, customs and aspects of those who rebelled against the Romantics. Rebuffed by the Parisian art world for their "realist" viewpoint, they stressed sympathy for the ordinary citizens whose lives were being profoundly impacted by the changes around them (Rubin, 4).

To Courbet, Realism was not so much a style of painting as a philosophy. His arguments with the present French art establishment concerned subject matter, not painting technique. Juries and the public shunned the Realists' work, because the art style broke away from the official Academic art. Courbet's paintings, such as the Stone-Breakers of 1849, which featured the laboring, faceless figures of an old man and adolescent boy, was criticized severely by critics who preferred mythological or idealistic subjects.

The Realists included a variety of painters who depicted reality in the cities and countryside. Jules Breton exemplifies this tradition. One of Breton's most famous artworks is "Recall of the Gleaners." The poorest rural community had the ancient right to glean, or gather, ears of wheat left by harvesters. At sunset, the gleaners harvested like caryatids (the women of Caryae in Ancient Greece, sentenced to hard labor for aiding the Persians). It was typical of the Realist movement to show their subjects in large format, similar to those in historical paintings. The painting proved successful with critics at the French "Le Salon de 1859," because they appreciated the naturalistic and poetic vision of the rural world. The interest in the painting, however, was based on the art itself, not the message.

Many of today's critics say that Breton saw things differently than his fellow Realists, especially Courbet and was more accepted because of it. "Jules Breton looked at the world and the future with an optimistic eye .... Where they (other artists) saw the poor, he saw the 'humble'" (Weisberg, 9). In fact, Breton is called a Realist, whereas Millet and Courbet are considered "radical Realists" (Weisberg, 104).

Another Realist painter by the name of John Francois Millet lived and breathed the world of the peasant. Like his father, he too worked the soil and thought highly of those who made their living off the land. Millet's works changed considerably over his lifetime. Considering his earlier paintings as frivolous, he finally found his role as an artist after the Revolution of 1848 and from his disdain for the city of Paris. In the summer of 1849 he went to Barbizon, a little village about one league from Chailly, on the borders of the Forest of Fontainebleau. He only meant to spend a few weeks there; but remained for the rest of his life -- twenty-seven years. Although his work was at its best during this period, he was only understood by a few. Much of the public believed he was using artwork of hard and rough peasants as the "Sower" as revolutionary -- to condone socialism and appeal to the masses. As he grew older, Millet became more secure of his direction. However, with the advent of World War I and devastating deaths in his family, he began only to paint landscapes without the remarkable characters.

Realist artist William Frith was recognized for his city rather than rural paintings, including those as the "Crossing Sweeper" and "Railway Station." Over time, he has not made as great of an impact as the other artists depicted here. Much of his inspiration came from the works of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. As a painter of scenes of Victorian life, he always sought to depict images of the normal day-to-day existence and social concerns. During the 1850s, his success grew when Queen Victoria purchased his painting "Ramsgate Sands." The following year, he was elected a Royal Academician to fill the place left vacant by Joseph Turner's death. Frith continued painting until his death in 1909 and his works include many of the most familiar images of Victorian art.

It is Gustav Courbet, however, who truly signifies the intent of the Realist period. This comes as no surprise considering what else was taking place around him. As Rubin notes (27):

The 1840s was a period of uncertainty as well as hope, not just for Courbet but for many who contested the social and political status quo. During the 1840s, the conflicts unleashed by the French Revolution continued to boil up in French society -- nonarchists vs. republicans, landowners vs. peasants, and the modern struggle with capitalism by an emerging proletariat, as in the Lyon riots or disturbances in working-class neighborhoods of Paris.

Like Millet, Courbet focused much of his work on the poverty of the peasants in the fields. In the "Stonebreakers," for example, Courbet paid direct homage to Millet yet transcended this artist's example by drawing once again on his own experience (Rubin 57). The "Stonebreakers" depicts a scene of agricultural work that evoked stronger public response than Millet's paintings -- bordering on anger. The artwork reminded everyone of the rising tensions between the rural way of life with traditional crop-sharing and the emerging method of minimum daily wages. Courbet emphasized this difference by showing that daily-wage jobs, including breaking stones into gravel, were being taken by workers who had been forced off their farms and no longer could be sustained by the land. The shabbiness of the clothing, the dryness of the detail, yet the individuality of the people force the viewers into this way of life that consisted of monotony and repetition.