Realism style in visual arts and literature

Realist Painting Style and Realism

The Realist style owes its existence to the Realist concept. "Realism is democracy in art," Courbet believed. (Nochlin, xiii) Taking that as the credo upon which the works of the artists were constructed, the style itself can be nothing if not anti-academic, anti-historical, anti-conservative. Indeed, whether brushstrokes or pen markings or etching into stone or metal form the image, the underlying attitude is one of freedom, attention to the gross characteristics of form, dismissal of mere decoration for its own sake, and obvious celebration of anything. The self-consciousness of the finely chosen brushstroke or marking is gone, in favor of a brushstroke or marking that favors expression of the interplay between what is seen and the seer. Gone is any demand from outside the artist to make things appear lovelier, grander, more stately than they perhaps really are. It is, in short, art with the warts painted in. It is the "attempt to render in paint that exists in three dimensions." (Parlez-vous Web site) It is, moreover, a less light-filled art than what had gone before, the Romantic style, and what would come after, Impressionism. It used the colors of the palette that corresponded to the nature of the subject matter, and the subject matter had changed from nobility in shining satins to the peasantry in rough and dirty woolens and linens. It might be fair to say that Realism was a portrait of reality gone down market one full step, for the painters themselves were, by and large, firmly bourgeoisie. So it might also be reasonably concluded that Realism is a style depicting 'what is' from a viewpoint that could easily look down were it not rooted in an egalitarian philosophy and a compassionate attitude.

Because the peasantry has no history, and the bourgeoisie has little -- certainly not the illustrious genetic trees of the nobility nominally deposed in the events, all across Europe, of 1848 -- the concept of time as a locus for Realist paintings was far different from the concept of time as it had been used in all the 'isms' that had gone before. Classicism was timeless in that it was a self-involved ethos that imagined that events that had happened 2000 years earlier, or even longer, had lasting value for the viewer and were fit subjects for art. Romanticism was timeless in that it celebrated the enduring noble qualities of mankind in an imaginary, color-washed palette that could, to a Realist, only be the things of dreams. But Realism took on the nature of the eternal Now, although certainly the meat-and-potatoes Courbet, who originated the concept in great part, would not have expressed it that way. How he did express it is this way: "Il faut tre de son temps." (Nochlin, 19) Translated, the slogan, "It is necessary to be of your own time," was the rallying cry of all Realists.

But exactly what did it mean? It was a simplistic call to what the artists saw as authenticity, to express and inform regarding the actual events and people of the day, month, year, decade, always changing and never being stuck in a particularly admired era, as they would say the classical academicians had done. It is entirely possible, of course, that the introduction of photography -- an 'instant painting' -- may have informed this viewpoint as much as did the 1848 Revolution and its destruction of great part of remaining Bonapartist elitism, previous noble stratification of French society. By anchoring the subject matter of art in its own time, the eternal present, the way was opened for the invention of the avant-garde, meaning that something is in advance of one's own time. (Nochlin, 7) In attempting to bring about social change -- which would happen sometime in the future -- art was necessarily perennially in advance of its own time, although it often lagged behind technically.

Charles Baudelaire, author and eloquent spokesman of Realism, had fought on the barricades in the 1848 Revolution, and later wrote on art. In one work he condemned the "puerile utopia of the art-for-art's sake school." (Nochlin, 3) As an egalitarian, Baudelaire wanted art, as much as anything else in life, to both reflect and be of interest to the greatest number of people, the working class. He decried that even when they did walk through a great treasure house of art, such as the Louvre, they would come away having seen objects, but not having been involved or moved at any elemental level. (It is distressing to say this, but together, Courbet and Baudelaire might well have been the thinkers who, a century and a half later, engendered the completely mass population-oriented 'reality show.') His call for "painters of modern life" was, looking at it through 21st century glasses, as self-involved and limiting as any other demand for a particular attitude in art had ever been. It was simply different because it celebrated not the nobility, but the serf.

Realism did focus on the serf. Naturally, by that time, they were called 'workers.' But even a brief look at the depictions of the workers in Courbet's work makes it clear that these people have nothing; their clothes are minimal, untidy. Their surroundings are unlovely. Their expressions are unhappy. Celebrating the worker, then, becomes literally a paean to the heroism of the millions who toil, granted a refreshing change from celebrating the solipsism of the classes who had always caused them to toil. It is well to remember, here, that the concept of time had changed, no longer mired in the past, but rather avant-garde, looking toward the future if anything. It would have to be that; the 'now' Courbet et al. painted was certainly nothing to aspire to. It was, however, a reflection of a certain segment of what actually was.

A discussion of three paintings, one each by Courbet, Jean-Francois Millet and Honore Daumier will illuminate how these three important Realists combined the political with the painterly, the ethos with the aesthetics.

Gustave Courbet

The Sleeping Spinner

Oil on canvas

35 7/8 x 45 1/4 in (91 x 115 cm)

Musee Fabre, Montpellier

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/C/courbet/courbet_spinner.jpg.html

Courbet, for all his derision of classicism, is perhaps the most classical among the three, at least in terms of his technique. He chooses a single female subject, not an unusual choice. He shows her in her familiar surroundings; again, quite ordinary for centuries of figure painting. He picks out the shape of her face and her hands -- those things which make a human being an individual from a pictorial standpoint -- with intense light. He fades into the background the everyday objects she would have had. And that is the source of the difference: the portraits of nobles from times past would have included objects displaying the station of the individual. In this case, the only objects displayed clearly are the spinning wheel and the spool. As in classical portraits, these objects indeed give information about the subject. And that is a radical departure; the subject is not only a worker, but also a female worker. And not only a female worker, but also one who is exhausted, fallen asleep on the job. That was 'painting for modern times,' as Baudelaire would have it. But Courbet's technique, from the ordering of his composition to the fine brushstrokes, is not nearly as avant-garde as that of some of his contemporaries. In this, he might have been perfectly suited to bridge the gap between classicism and the future, bringing at least an acknowledgement of skill to attempts to be shown at reputable venues.

Jean-Francois Millet

The Walk to Work

Millet, Jean-Francois

The Walk to Work (Le Depart pour le Travail)

Oil on canvas

55.5 x 46 cm (21 7/8 x 18 1/8 in.)

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/millet/walkwork.jpg.html

Millet has chosen an even more radical approach than Courbet. His composition of two figures walking across the fields to work is much more peasant-oriented: Courbet's approaches a bourgeoisie feeling and subject. His figures are not well dressed, whereas Courbet's sleeper is quite adequately robed for her place and time. Their clothing is tattered, dirty and of poor quality. Their relative positions, however, make it quite clear that this is art of a far different sort than had come before. The man is not standing behind, presenting the lady. He is walking in front, and his face is in shadow. The woman, although on a plane behind the man, faces front, confronting the viewer, almost expressionless and with a posture neither hopeless nor grand. She just is. In its simple activity, composition and studiously emotionless rendering, this painting is more avant-garde by far than Courbet's. Its rougher brush strokes seem perfectly suited to the subject matter. This painting would be harder to hang in the well-heeled households of the day, more demanding that salon judges be open to new ideas than is Courbet's. Because of this, the painting is a more forceful -- or at least more aggressive -- statement of the changes in art and the world of its time.

Honore Daumier

The Third-Class Carriage

1863-65

Oil on canvas

25 3/4 x 35 1/2 in. (65.4 x 90.2 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/daumier/third_class.jpg.html

One is simply tempted to say, "Holy cow! Is that woman nursing a baby on a train? Holy cow!" In some parts of the U.S. even today, this would be a difficult picture to hang. And yet, in its own time, it was probably far more common for a woman to nurse in public -- at least, a working-class woman -- than it is today. But depicting it was another matter entirely. In the depiction, however, the nature of French society in the 1860s is explained in detail. The mother looks down lovingly at the baby. The woman beside her is lost in her own thoughts; the boy beside her sleep. In the background, people are going about their own business, talking, arguing, gazing at the passing scenery. One figure, far left, looks as if he might be looking over his shoulder, looking askance, at what the woman is doing. In fact, he is one of the few 'toffs' in the painting, with his top hat and stiff posture. While it is an oil painting, it also borrows much from the line work of lithography. Indeed, it is a departure in technique, a blending of painting with drawing.

It is yet another step beyond Courbet in terms of removal from classical technique in that respect. While Millet's work is far broader in concept, construction and execution than Courbet's, Daumier's is still broader in concept, still more expansive in construction/composition, and still more 'modern' in execution.

The attitudes of the Realists toward workers is far different from out attitude today. While nominally, Americans seem to value the 'common man,' in fact, we spend most of our time trying to become anything but, or at least, engaging in watching 'reality shows' that are no more than dreams of a better condition vicariously experienced. As far as our art, it is rare -- at least since the end of the Ashcan School, to see anything remotely resembling the worker extolled in art. And even for the Ashcan School, it was the industry itself that was paramount.

The ideas of the Realists related directly to the results of the 1848 Revolution. That event centered on the refusal of Louis Philippe to restore universal suffrage and other elitist matters. When his regime fell, creating the Second Republic, universal suffrage was restored. Nine million Frenchmen could suddenly take part in the direct election of deputies to the Constituent Assembly. A previous experiment in electoral democracy had not resulted in much voter turnout; after 1848, that changed. (Crook, 1993) As a result of the Second Republic, a new liberal spirit began to affect the arts as well, and for the first time, the Salon held its exhibition in the Tuileries gardens adjoining the Louvre. In 1849, Courbet exhibited there to both critical and public acclaim. (Nelepets Web site)

The industrial revolution, particularly in France, was a combination of industrialization and scientific ideas.

Lavoisier built a solar furnace, even before the Revolution, using extreme hat to break down materials. Bequerel produced the first solar electric cell, and Mouchot and Pifre patented a solar-powered steam engine. Among the most influential of these for artists would have been the invention of the Daguerreotype. Niepce actually preceded Louis Daguerre, making a photograph on metal as early as 1826. When Daguerre made the process easier and more affordable, it allowed those who could not afford an artist's portrait to preserve likenesses. (Dorozynski, 1989)

The art market, by the time the Realists arrived, had become one in which the bourgeoisie was buying paintings, rather than simply the well heeled. Doctors and lawyers were buyers. And those who championed the Revolution would also have championed this art. Those who didn't buy it were the academicians; the French Academy, as it habitually did with all rising genres, ignored it at best.

Biographies

There is no question that these three artists were immensely important to the development of Realism; it is only fitting to know something about how they came to their convictions.

Gustave Courbet (1819-77)

Courbet was born to prosperous farmers in the small, lovely town of Ornans. He was educated, although he was disinterested in academics. When he was 20, in 1839, Courbet moved to Paris, deciding to become a painter. He studied with Steuben and Hesse and spend time studying Dutch landscapes in the Louvre. He was likely influenced by his literary contemporaries, Balzac and Stendahl, who were working in Realism. (Roughton Galleries Web site)

Courbet was a combative painter, becoming involved in the political turmoil of the times. He argued with his critics at the Salon, and he attempted to establish independent exhibitions. (Roughton Galleries Web site) He was also very vain, and hated all authority. He taunted authority, in fact, and was delighted when Napoleon II, enraged at one of Courbet's female nude statues, struck at it with his riding crop. (Julius, 1993)

In the political side of his life, in the 1870s, he was named chairman of France's Arts Commission. When the Communists came to power, however, he was charged with allowing destruction of several major artworks. To avoid the costs of reparation, he fled to Switzerland where he became ill and died. (Roughton Galleries Web site)

Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875)

Millet was born into a successful landowning family at Gruchy, and studied as a youth in Cherbourg with a local painter, and later with Langlois. He also worked in the Paris studio of Pal Delaroche from 1837 to 1840, returning to Cherbourg the next year as a portraitist.

His first wife died of consumption in 1844, and he moved to LeHavre in 1845, and then to Paris, bringing with him Catherine Lemaire, a domestic servant who could not read or write. As Millet's companion, she bore nine children between 1846 and 1863; they were married in a civil ceremony in 1853 and in a religious one seventeen days before Millet's death in 1875.

After the Revolution of 1848, Millet had become interested in peasant scenes and the stoicism it allowed him to portray. Much of the time, Millet worked in squalor, with Boston painter William Morris Hunt at one point buying almost everything Millet had on hand to help him out. Finally, working on pastels commission by wealthy architect Emile Gavet helped him turn the financial corner and he became financially independent, even earning the Legion d'Honneur in 1868.

Honore Daumier (1808-1879)

Daumier was the son of a Marseilles glazier, moving to Paris with his family in 186. He studied lithography under Lenoir, and began to contribute cartoons to a weekly, Caricature. (Columbia Encyclopedia, 2004) He was jailed for seventy days in Sainte-Pelagie prison in 1832 for depicting King Louis-Philippe as the "Rabelaisian glutton Gargantua, excreting political privileges on his 'throne'." This did not dampen his enthusiasm for political cartooning and he would aim his art at enemies of republican ideas whenever censorship allowed. (Dolan, 1998)

His work was bitterly ironic, and ridiculed bourgeois society. He painted about 200 small canvases as well as creating almost 4,000 lithographs. In his later years, he began to grow blind and was not well off financially either. Corot loaned him a small cottage in which he died. (Columbia Encyclopedia, 2004)