RealismRealism

Revision

Characteristics of the PeriodCharacteristics of the Period

• During the second half of 19th century the positivism was dominant

• It was an age of faith in knowledge derived from science

• The scientific method was used to solve all human problems.

Visual ArtsVisual Arts

• The subjectivism and imagination of Romanticism are rejected

• They want an accurate description of the objects

• Science and the development of photography influenced into academic art

• They tend to represent contemporary life instead of imitating past models

Visual ArtsVisual Arts

• Ordinary people and everyday activities became subjects of Art

• Realists tend to portray the lives, appearances, problems, customs and mores of the middle and lower classes

• They did these depictions of the unexceptional, ordinary, humble and unadorned

• They represented ignored aspects such as mental attitudes, physical settings and material conditions.

ChronologyChronology

• In France they appeared after the 1848 revolution– They expressed a taste for democracy

• In England they appeared at the same time– It was a reaction against Victorian materialism– They reacted against the conventions of the

Royal Academy in London

ArtistsArtists

• The Realists– There is an international group centred in Paris– They focused on:

• Scientific concepts of vision

• Study of optical effects

– They expressed:• Taste for democracy

• Rejection of the old artistic tradition

ArtistsArtists

– They felt that painters should work from the life around them

– Desecrated rules of artistic propriety with their new realistic portrayals of modern life

– Artists:• Courbet: The Artist’s Workshop

• Daumier: Caricatures

• Millet: Angelus

ArtistsArtists

• Barbizon School:– Landscape artists formed outside the Academy– Named after the forest of Fontebleau in near

Barbizon where they worked– They attempted to paint nature directly– The pioneer of this movement is Constable,

with a faithful depiction of nature

ArtistsArtists

• Pre-Raphaelite Broterhood– They aimed at reforming academic British Art– They wanted to represent the natural work, not

as is was taught in the Academy, following Raphael

– They paid attention to the accuracy of detail and colour

– The combination of didactics and realism characterised the first phase

ArtistsArtists

– Landscape compositions were painted outdoors– The second phase was marked by the interest in

Middle Ages– Subject matters were from medieval tales, bible

stories, classical mythology, and nature – With technique of bright colours on a white

background, they achieved great depth and brilliance

– Artists: Millais, Burne-Jones, Waterhouse