Realism 1840-1880

1840-1880

Realism was a reaction to Romanticism, Romanticism shined light on the people of the past and rejected the present. Realism helped lead the way for meany other art movements, they made the modern day an acceptable subject for art. Realism showed the people that made the world, they weren't about kings and queens, they were about real people. Their paintings were fare   from the dramatic, emotions full work, of the Romantic era. 

I wouldn't say that their paintings are pretty in any way, but they are truthful to real life. They showed what life was like for the working man, their subjects were hard working people, the working classes. Shown living their day to day life. 

 The June Days uprising, it was a French uprising started by the French workers. from 23 June to 26 June 1848, it was in response to the idea of the National Workshops being closed. This was an idea of the Second Republic, they wanted to close the National Workshops. Closing the workshops meant the hundreds of people were left unemployed. The realist painters would have been in Francs at the time of the uprising, they would have seen how the people were affected by the accession of the upper class. 

Gustave Courbet: The Stonebreakers, 1849.

French.

 After Dinner at Ornans, 1849.

Realism feels very melancholy to me, the colour palliate is quite bleak

A Burial at Ornans, 1849. At first I wasn't sure how this painting really relates to Realism. The painting is of a funereal, but not the funereal of anyone known to the public. There are hundreds of paintings of the deaths of a Monarch or holy figure, He's painted the funereal of a common person. What else is really intriguing it that you don't know who's funereal it is. From looking into this painting in more depth, I found out that it was submitted as a Biblical painting. Salon rejected the painting, it about 10x22 feet. The size  of the painting is important, as large paintings were normally just reserved for ancient history, Biblical and mythological. Jean-François Millet:The Gleaners,1857. French. Something that I think is unique to Realism is how they don't really show the faces of the people their painting. Realism was about capturing the people that worked on the land, people that weren't known. they painted ordinary people, shining a bit of light on what it was to be working class. Not being able to see there eyes or faces, I think, reflects how the upper class perceived them e.g. the working class.