Realism some text added.prs
REALISM AND THE RISE
OF MODERNISM
1848: a new wave of revolutions spreads
across Europe
Marx and Engels: The Communist Manifesto
Darwin: On the Origin of Species, 1859
photography, popular culture and mass
media
Auguste Comte: positivism
Rue Transnonian, April 15 (1834), lithograph, 12 x 17 1/2"
Honore Daumier: Gargantua
1831, lithograph
Meissonier: Memory of
Civil War (The Barricades),
1849
oil on canvas, 11 x 8 in
Charles Baudelaire and the
heroes of modern life
ImagePage 1 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
Gustave
Courbet
Funeral at Ornans, 1849-1850, 10' x 22'
Desperate
Man (Self
Portrait)
1843
The Stone Breakers, 1849, 5'3 x 8'6
Jean-François Millet: The Gleaners, 1857
Rosa Bonheur: The Horse Fair, 1853-55, 96-1/4 x 199-1/2 in.
Manet: from realism to impressionism
ImagePage 2 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
Manet:
Luncheon
on the
Grass, 1863,
7' x 8' 10"
Éduard Manet: Execution of
Emperor Maximilian of
Mexico, June 19, 1867
1868-1869, o/c, 100 x 120"
(Goya: Executions on the
Third of May)
Olympia, 1863, 4'3 x 6'2
Wilhelm Leibl:
Three Women in a
Church,
1878-82
2'5 x 2'1
ImagePage 3 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
Il'ya Repin: Religious Procession in the Province of Kursk,
1881-3, 50" x 112"
Winslow Homer: The Veteran in a New Field
1865, 24 1/8 x 38 1/8 in.
Timothy O'Sullivan: A Harvest of Death
July 1863, (neg. only) albumen print by Alexander Gardner
Thomas Eakins:
Hawes and Southworth:
Early Operation under Ether,
daguerreotype, 1847
The Gross
Clinic, 1875,
96 x 78"
ImagePage 4 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
Henry Ossawa
Tanner:
Banjo Lesson
1893,
49 x 35 in
J. S. Sargent:
The
Daughters of
Edward
Darley Boit,
1882
87 3/8 x 87 5/8
in.
Tanner: The Thankful Poor, 1894, 5 x 44 in.
Edmonia Lewis:
Forever Free
1867, marble,
3'5" ht.
From Architectural Revivals to
Architectural Modernism
ImagePage 5 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
Charles Barry and A.W.N. Pugin, Houses of Parliament,
1836-1860, London, England
The British Houses of Parliament are an example
of the revival of the English gothic style, popular
at this time for its association with spiritual
values, values of handcraft, and a seeming
rejection of the age of industry and the machine.
All the same, how could a building of this scale
have been made without industry and machines?
John Nash: Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 1815-23
Clearly, Nash did not revive anything British. But
this was a period of colonialization and
imperialistic trends, and a taste for the exotic
east was popular in countries that were building
colonies in the east. Making buildings look
Indian in England was probably benign; making
India look like Britain may have been less
benign.
Charles Garnier, Paris Opera House, 1861-74
ImagePage 6 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
An opera house should be theatrical and
baroque, as this one was. Garnier applied true
principles of classical beaux-arts design to this
building. But what can't be seen is that the
architecture is masking new cast-iron
construction -- new principles and materials of
construction but "old-fashioned" clothing.
Henri Labrouste: Bibliotheque (Library) Sainte-Genevieve,
Paris, 1843-50
Unlike Garnier, Labrouste did not hide the new
structural materials, and in his daring decision
to reveal the iron and glass structure, he was
considerably more modern than Garnier. The
exterior, in contrast, was an example of
Renaissance revival not because he was timid
but because he probably realized that new
developments are more acceptable when they
conform in some respect to the familiar past.
Joseph Paxton: Crystal Palace, London,
1850-1
Crystal Palace marked the beginning of
industrial expositions. Architecturally, it was an
early example of a glass and cast-iron structure
designed by a gardener (who had designed
hothouses). It was made from prefabricated
parts that were shipped to the site and then
assembled in place and it was so large that
entire trees remained on the inside. After the
expo ended, it was reassembled on another site
where it burned in a fire in 1936.
ImagePage 7 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
the continued neoclassical
revival
Photography
The interest in a mechanical means of reproduction came long
before the invention of photography. Artists themselves wanted
to be able to draw without actually using their hand, and
certainly those who couldn’t draw well wanted to be able to
improve their work with an optical tool that would let them see
better. But this reason alone would not have led to the
invention of the camera. In some respects, the early 19th
century development of photography should be seen as a
response to the beginning of modern times: industrialization,
new ideas about nature and man, the invention of electric lights,
the goal of being of one’s time–rather than the result of a pure
or simple desire to invent a camera and a photographic process.
Other factors leading to photography:
the growing middle class consumer of art wanted portraits and
wanted them to be affordable
there was an increased demand for naturalism in art
a desire to eliminate human error in the process of reproduction
Optics and the Reproduction
of Images
the camera obscura
1. camera obscura
2. camera lucida
ImagePage 8 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
somewhat more portable
a daguerreotype of
Louis Jacques Mande
Daguerre
(Jean Baptiste SabatierBlot), 1844
Daguerre: Still Life in the Artist's Studio
1837, Daguerreotype, 16.5x21.6cm.
the camera lucida
daguerreotype:
• uses a polished silver-plated sheet of copper
• placed in iodine particles
• produces silver iodide which is light-sensitive
• this can be exposed to light in the camera
• intense light reduces the silver iodide to silver
• the plate is then placed in a box containing heated mercury
• then it is bathed in a salt solution and the unexposed areas of silver
iodide become somewhat resistant to light
positive image
one-of-a-kind
absolute immobility required for relatively
long period of time
detailed
small, with reflective metallic surface: unity
of reflection and materiality
ImagePage 9 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
Unlike the daguerreotype, the calotype used a negative/positive
process which used paper, making it more adaptable and
influential.
• it took longer to make than the daguerreotype
• the paper which the image was made on might coarsen the
image
• because it involved making a print from a negative, it allowed
the calotypist to exercise artistic liberty with decisions about
tonality, texture of the paper, and later application of color - this
made it more promising for the person who was interested in
photography as a creative endeavor but at the same time, it
made the calotype less popular than the daguerreotype.
William Talbot: Courtyard Scene
c.1844, a calotype print,
5 7/8x7 3/4"
Ophelia Study No. 2
The next stage was the development of a calotype that used a
process that involved coating paper with albumen and another
emulsion, producing a glossy print rather than a grainy calotype.
The use of collodion or the wet plate process was the next step;
albumen prints became the most commonly practiced form of
photography from the middle of the 19th century until the end,
and it was especially popular with people who were amateurs,
rather than people who used photography as a means of earning
a living. Julia Margaret Cameron was one of these amateurs.
Julia Margaret
Cameron
1867
albumen print
(1'1" x 11")
Cameron took up photography at the age of 48 - her daughter-inlaw gave her a camera as a gift; from a hobby, it became a
passionate pursuit. She wrote in her memoirs, that “I longed to
arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has
been satisfied. Its difficulty enhanced the value of the pursuit.”
In her book, she goes on to describe all her mistakes, how she
learned from them, how she eventually turned her coal-house into a
dark room and her glazed fowl-house into her glass house.
Eventually she began photographing her friends, who included
poets, painters, and “lovely maidens” -- the latter were often friends
and relatives who dressed up for the photographs as women from
legends and historical romances.
ImagePage 10 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.
Realism some text added.prs
The painting, Beata Beatrix , was by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a preRaphaelite artist. Cameron's photographs appear to have a lot in
common with the goals of the pre-Raphaelites, with whom she was
friendly.
The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood was a group of artists who wanted
to return art to the purity of the early Renaissance, the years before
Raphael. They usually chose religious subject matter as an antiVictorian, anti-materialist statement rather than as a pious one. As a
result, their work might be mystical, but not religious. They shared
in the British reclamation of medieval and mythological imagery and
meaning. They anticipate the symbolist movement and its search
for an art which will resonate with mystical spiritual systems. Also
like many of the symbolists, they use naturalistic detail although
their paintings are not realist.
ImagePage 11 of 11
This image and the text corresponding to this image may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.