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Realism (art movement)

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This article is about the 19th-century art movement. For naturalism or realism in the arts, see Realism (arts).
For other uses, see Realism (disambiguation).
Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers (1849)

Realism was an artistic movement that emerged in France in the 1840s, around the 1848 Revolution.[1] Realists rejected Romanticism, which had dominated French literature and art since the early 19th century. Realism revolted against the exotic subject matter and the exaggerated emotionalism and drama of the Romantic movement. Instead, it sought to portray real and typical contemporary people and situations with truth and accuracy. It did not avoid unpleasant or sordid aspects of life. The movement aimed to focus on unidealized subjects and events that were previously rejected in art work. Realist works depicted people of all social classes in situations that arise in ordinary life, and often reflected the changes brought by the Industrial and Commercial Revolutions. Realism was primarily concerned with how things appeared to the eye, rather than containing ideal representations of the world.[citation needed] The popularity of such "realistic" works grew with the introduction of photography—a new visual source that created a desire for people to produce representations which look objectively real.[citation needed]

The Realists depicted everyday subjects and situations in contemporary settings, and attempted to depict individuals of all social classes in a similar manner. Gloomy earth toned palettes were used to ignore beauty and idealization that was typically found in art. This movement sparked controversy because it purposefully criticized social values and the upper classes, as well as examining the new values that came along with the industrial revolution. Realism is widely regarded as the beginning of the modern art movement due to the push to incorporate modern life and art together.[2] Classical idealism and Romantic emotionalism and drama were avoided equally, and often sordid or untidy elements of subjects were not smoothed over or omitted. Social realism emphasizes the depiction of the working class, and treating them with the same seriousness as other classes in art, but realism, as the avoidance of artificiality, in the treatment of human relations and emotions was also an aim of Realism. Treatments of subjects in a heroic or sentimental manner were equally rejected.[3]

Realism as an art movement was led by Gustave Courbet in France. It spread across Europe and was influential for the rest of the century and beyond, but as it became adopted into the mainstream of painting it becomes less common and useful as a term to define artistic style. After the arrival of Impressionism and later movements which downgraded the importance of precise illusionistic brushwork, it often came to refer simply to the use of a more traditional and tighter painting style. It has been used for a number of later movements and trends in art, some involving careful illusionistic representation, such as Photorealism, and others the depiction of "realist" subject matter in a social sense, or attempts at both.

Beginnings of the Realism Art Movement in France

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Gustave Courbet, The Meeting (1854)

The Realist movement began in the mid-19th century as a reaction to Romanticism and History painting. In favor of depictions of 'real' life, the Realist painters used common laborers, and ordinary people in ordinary surroundings engaged in real activities as subjects for their works. The chief exponents of Realism were Gustave Courbet, Jean-François Millet, Honoré Daumier, and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.[4][5][6] Jules Bastien-Lepage is closely associated with the beginning of Naturalism, an artistic style that emerged from the later phase of the Realist movement and heralded the arrival of Impressionism.[7]

Realists used unprettified detail depicting the existence of ordinary contemporary life, coinciding in the contemporaneous naturalist literature of Émile Zola, Honoré de Balzac, and Gustave Flaubert.[8]

Courbet was the leading proponent of Realism and he challenged the popular history painting that was favored at the state-sponsored art academy. His groundbreaking paintings A Burial at Ornans and The Stonebreakers depicted ordinary people from his native region. Both paintings were done on huge canvases that would typically be used for history paintings.[8] Although Courbet's early works emulated the sophisticated manner of Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Titian, after 1848 he adopted a boldly inelegant style inspired by popular prints, shop signs, and other work of folk artisans.[9] In The Stonebreakers, his first painting to create a controversy, Courbet eschewed the pastoral tradition of representing human subjects in harmony with nature. Rather, he depicted two men juxtaposed against a charmless, stony roadside. The concealment of their faces emphasizes the dehumanizing nature of their monotonous, repetitive labor.[9]

The Realism Art Movement Outside France

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The French Realist movement had stylistic and ideological equivalents in all other Western countries, developing somewhat later. The Realist movement in France was characterized by a spirit of rebellion against powerful official support for history painting. In countries where institutional support of history painting was less dominant, the transition from existing traditions of genre painting to Realism presented no such schism.[9]

Russian Realism Art Movement

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Ilya Repin, Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1870–73

Realism in Russia arose in the 1850s and 1860s.[11] Due to dissatisfaction with the Academy and the Czar, many art students left the school and began traveling exhibitions, painting peasants and rural life in the countryside, becoming known as the Peredvizhnik (the Travelers, Wanderers, Itinerants).[11][12] Some of these Travelers include genre artist Vasily Perov, landscape artists Ivan Shishkin, Alexei Savrasov, and Arkhip Kuindzhi, portraitist Ivan Kramskoy, and historical artist Vasily Surikov.[13] Some of the most well-known of the Russian Realists are Ilya Repin, for his paintings of peasants like Barge Haulers on the Volga (1870–73) and themes of revolution, and Vassili Vereschagin, for this art depicting warfare and his travels in India.[11][14][15]

German Realism Art Movement

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Adolph Menzel, The Iron Rolling Mill (Modern Cyclops) (1872-75)

Courbet's influence was felt most strongly in Germany, where prominent Realists included Adolph Menzel, Wilhelm Leibl, Wilhelm Trübner, and Max Liebermann. Leibl and several other young German painters met Courbet in 1869 when he visited Munich to exhibit his works and demonstrate his manner of painting from nature.[16][17] Leibl then spent a year in Paris before returning to Munich and formed the Leibl Circle in 1871 to focus on realism in painting with other artists from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.[17][18] Much of Leibl's body of work is paintings of ordinary people, including Three Women in Church (1881).

Adolf Menzel is another prominant Realist artist, beginning as a lithographer in Berlin and teaching himself to paint in 1840s.[11][19] Over his career, Menzel painted a variety of subjects, including nature, portraits, and ballrooms filled with people.[11][19] Two of his most famous works include Laying Out the March Dead (1848), depicting the civilian coffins after the March Revolution in Berlin, and an industrial factory scene, The Iron Rolling Mill (1872–75).

Italian Realism Art Movement (The Macchiaioli)

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Telemaco Signorini, Ghetto of Florence (1882)

In Italy, the Macchiaioli artist group formed between 1853 and 1860, influenced by the Realism art style when some of the members traveled to Paris.[20] The Macchiaioli rejected the formalities of the Florentine Accademia di Belle Arti, instead painting Realist scenes of rural and urban life.[21] When not painting in the Tuscan countryside, some members spent time in Florence and at the Caffé Michelangiolo, a common meeting place for thinkers and artists in the mid-19th century.[20][21] The Macchiaioli also were involved with the Italian unification movement, the Risorgimento.[20][21]

Originally called the Effettisti (effet: French for light effects), for their attention to light and shading in painting, they adopted their name after a critic called them macchia, meaning "spot" and "stain."[21] Though considered Realist, their art style has drawn comparisons to the brightness of Romanticism and the attention to light as with the Impressionists.[20] The Macchiaioli's paintings include an array of rural landscapes and peasants, urban scenes and laborers, and battle paintings. Some of the Macchiaioli artists include Giovanni Fattori, Serafino De Tivoli, Silvestro Lega, and Telemaco Signorini.[20]

Dutch Realism Art Movement (The Hague School)

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Jozef Israëls, Passing Mother's Grave (1856)

The Hague School was a group of Realist artists based in The Hague, Netherlands between 1860 and 1900, influenced by the Barbizon School of landscapes paintings, French naturalism and realism, and themes from the 17th century Dutch masters.[11][22][23] It's also nicknamed the 'Grey School' for heavy use of grey tones in many of their paintings.[22] Similarly to the French Realists, they disregarded Romanticism and objectively painted the ordinary, though with less focus on human plights.[11]

Willem Roelofs and Anton Mauve painted rural landscapes, Hendrick Willem Mesdag is known for seascapes and fishing boats, and Jacob Maris painted villages and waterways.[23] Of all the work in the Hague School, scholars consider Jozef Israëls's Realist paintings to be the most comparable to Gustave Courbet's and Jean-Francois Millet's work, often depicting peasants and laboring.[23] Vincent Van Gogh was instructed by Mauve and originally painted in the Realist style until he visited Paris in 1886 and was influenced by Impressionist artworks.[11]

British Realism Art Movement

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Hubert von Herkomer, Eventide: A Scene at the Westminster Union (1878)

Hubert von Herkomer, Luke Fildes, and Frank Holl comprised the unofficial British social realism school starting in the 1870s.[24] They worked together at The Graphic from 1872-1876, producing woodcut images for the illustrated newspaper, drawing attention to social issues and poverty in the United Kingdom.[24][25] The German-born Herkomer admired Menzel's woodcut prints and artwork, which show influence in Herkomer's prints for The Graphic.[25] After their early career in prints, Herkomer, Fildes, and Holl moved to paintings, portraying objective depictions of poor and laboring people while also conversely, painting portraits for British nobility.[25][26] Active a decade earlier, Frederick Walker had a similar trajectory from printing to Realist painting and was influential on Herkomer's work and other British artists in the later 19th century.[27][25]

Despite being an original tenant of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, modern scholars are unconvinced that they can be called Realists.[28] Like the French and Russian Realists, the Pre-Raphaelites rejected the academy in the mid-1800s and sought to objectively portray nature, but it's argued their artwork appears more emotional and reminiscent of Romanticism and the Nazarene movement.[29] Later in his career, the Pre-Raphaelite Ford Maddox Brown's work was more traditionally Realist, as exemplified in Work (1855, 1863) and The Last of England (1852-5).[28]

American Realism Art Movement

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Robert Henri, Snow in New York (1902)

Realism influenced American artists studying in Paris and Munich in the 1860s and 1870s.[18] Two early American Realists, Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins, spent time in Paris in 1867 and 1866–69, respectively.[30] Homer's initial artwork consisted of Civil War camp and peasant paintings in the Realist style, though he transitioned to a more Romantic style later in life, depicting coastal cities and nature.[30][31][32] Eakins worked on Realist style portraits and outside scenes, especially rowers on the water.[33] American artists studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in the 1870s were taught by Karl von Piloty, who was proponent of Realism, but applied to history painting.[18] These students included Frank Duveneck, William Merritt Chase, and Frank Currier, who were also members of the Realist Leibl Circle.[17]

A later wave of American Realism occurred with the Ashcan School in New York City in the 1890s, depicting urban scenes and laborers in their artwork.[30][34] Their leader, Robert Henri, attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in 1886, where the teaching was heavily influenced by Thomas Eakins' Realist style, though Eakins was forced to resign just prior to Henri starting.[30] After three years in Paris, he returned to the US and settled in New York, actively working against the mainstream academy and the Impressionist art movement.[30][35] Other Realist members of the group include John Sloan, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, and George Luks.[30] Similarly to Menzel and the British social Realists, all four also began their careers as newspaper print illustrators.[30]

More Realism Artworks

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References

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  1. ^ Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. ^ "Realism Movement Overview". The Art Story. Retrieved 2019-02-25.
  3. ^ Finocchio, Ross. "Nineteenth-Century French Realism". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. online (October 2004)
  4. ^ NGA Realism movement Archived 2014-07-14 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ National Gallery glossary, Realism movement
  6. ^ Philosophy of Realism
  7. ^ Fry, Roger. 1920. "Vision and Design." London: Chatto & Windus. "An Essay in Æsthetics." 11–24. Accessed online on 13 March 2012 at "Roger Fry [=] Vision and design". Archived from the original on 2013-11-14. Retrieved 2017-09-09.
  8. ^ a b Nineteenth-Century French Realism | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  9. ^ a b c Rubin, J. 2003. "Realism". Grove Art Online.
  10. ^ National Gallery of Art
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Needham, Gerald (1988). 19th-century realist art. Icon editions (1st ed.). New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-430156-5.
  12. ^ Nesterova, Yelena (1996). The Itinerants: The Masters of Russian Realism. Parkstone Aurora. ISBN 1859952542.
  13. ^ "10 Most Famous Russian Artists And Their Masterpieces | Learnodo Newtonic". Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  14. ^ Kar, Sunil (1981). Realistic Art of Vereschagin. Nava Yug Publishers.
  15. ^ Iovleva, L.I. "Repin, Il'ya". Grove Art Online.
  16. ^ Nationalgalerie (Berlin), and Françoise Forster-Hahn. 2001. Spirit of an Age: Nineteenth-Century Paintings From the Nationalgalerie, Berlin. London: National Gallery Company. p. 155. ISBN 1857099605
  17. ^ a b c Leibl, Wilhelm; Manstein, Marianne von; Waldkirch, Bernhard von (2019). Wilhelm Leibl - the art of seeing. Kunsthaus Zürich, Albertina. München: Hirmer. ISBN 978-3-7774-3387-5.
  18. ^ a b c Quick, Michael, and Eberhard Ruhmer. (1978). Munich & American Realism in the 19th Century. E.B Crocker Art Gallery.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ a b Fried, Michael; Menzel, Adolph (2002). Menzel's realism: art and embodiment in nineteenth-century Berlin. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09219-6.
  20. ^ a b c d e Troyer, Nancy Gray (2003). "Macchiaioli". Grove Art Online.
  21. ^ a b c d Broude, Norma (1987). The Macchiaioli: Italian painters of the nineteenth century. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-03547-6.
  22. ^ a b de Leeuw, Ronald (2003). "Hague school". Grove Art Online.
  23. ^ a b c Reynaerts, Jeanne Astrid Hubertine (2019). Mirror of reality: 19th-century painting in the Netherlands. Brussel Amsterdam: Mercatorfonds Rijksmuseum New Haven Yale University press. ISBN 978-94-6230-185-6.
  24. ^ a b Edwards, Lee M. (2003). "Holl, Frank [Francis] (Montague)". Grove Art Online.
  25. ^ a b c d Edwards, Lee M.; Herkomer, Hubert von, eds. (1999). Herkomer, a Victorian artist. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-84014-686-8.
  26. ^ Edwards, Lee M. (2003). "Fildes, (Samuel) Luke". Grove Art Online.
  27. ^ De Freitas, Leo John (2003). "Walker, Fred(erick)". Grove Art Online.
  28. ^ a b Werner, Marcia (2005). Pre-Raphaelite painting and nineteenth-century realism. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-82468-2.
  29. ^ Schultze, Jürgen; Forryan, Barbara (1979). Art of nineteenth-century Europe. New York, NY: Abrams. ISBN 978-0-8109-8017-4.
  30. ^ a b c d e f g Lucie-Smith, Edward (2003). American realism (Paperback [ed.], reprinted ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-28356-1.
  31. ^ Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; Simpson, Marc; Homer, Winslow, eds. (2013). Winslow Homer: The Clark Collection. Williamstown, Massachusetts: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. ISBN 978-1-935998-12-9.
  32. ^ Homer, Winslow; Cikovsky, Nicolai; Kelly, Franklin; National Gallery of Art, eds. (1995). Winslow Homer: exhibition dates: National Gallery of Art, Washington, 15 October 1995 - 28 January 1996; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 21 February - 26 May, 1996; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 20 June - 22 September 1996. New Haven London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-06555-8.
  33. ^ Johns, Elizabeth (2023). "Eakins, Thomas (Cowperthwaite)". Grove Art Online.
  34. ^ Young, Mahonri Sharp (1977). American realists, Homer to Hopper. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications. ISBN 978-0-8230-0215-3.
  35. ^ Young, Mahonri Sharp (1973). The Eight: the realist revolt in American painting (1. pr ed.). New York, NY: Watson-Guptill. ISBN 978-0-8230-1607-5.
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