Realism Impressionism Post Impressionism week five Background/context The École des Beaux-Arts • The École des Beaux-Arts (est. 1648) was a government controlled art school originally meant to guarantee a pool of artists available to decorate the palaces of Louis XIV Artistic training at The École des Beaux-Arts • Students at the École des Beaux Arts were required to pass exams which proved they could imitate classical art. • An École education had three essential parts: learning to copy engravings of Classical art, drawing from casts of Classical statues and finally drawing from the nude model The Academy, Académie des Beaux-Arts • The École des Beaux-Arts was an adjunct to the French Académie des beaux-arts • The Academy held a virtual monopoly on artistic styles and tastes until the late 1800s • The Academy favored classical subjects painted in a highly polished classical style • Academic art was at its most influential phase during the periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism • The Academy ranked subject matter in order of importance -History and classical subjects were the most important types of painting -Landscape was near the bottom -Still life and genre painting were unworthy subjects for art The Salons • The Salons were annual art shows sponsored by the Academy • If an artist was to have any success or recognition, it was essential achieve success in the Salons Realism What is Realism? Courbet rebelled against the strictures of the Academy, exhibiting in his own shows. Other groups of painters followed his example and began to rebel against the Academy as well. • Subjects attempt to make the ordinary into something beautiful • Subjects often include peasants and workers • Subjects attempt to show the undisguised truth of life • Realism deliberately violates the standards of the Academy. • Genre scenes, a favorite of the Realists, were considered unworthy subjects for art by the Academy • The paintings are not technically sophisticated. Sometimes brushwork is still visible (impasto) Realism Gustave Courbet, Stone Breakers, 1849 hyperlink: Gustave Courbet’s Ordinary road workers are elevated to the status of art. Painted nearly life size on painting technique, 3 min an enormous canvas, this painting was considered ugly, offensive and rude by Academic standards. Realism Gustave Courbet, Studio of a Painter: A Real Allegory Summarizing My Seven Years as an Artist, 1854 •50 people were invited to Courbet’s studio. They were posed informally • The people on the left are the peasants and workers • The people on the right are the Parisian intellectuals and collectors • Nobody pays any attention to Courbet except the nude, the boy and the dog. • Courbet organized his own exhibit for this painting in 1855. The show was called “Du Realisme.” • By organizing his own show in an era when the Academy dictated taste, Courbet was proclaiming artistic freedom from Academic tyranny. Realism Gustave Courbet, Burial at Ornans, 1849 Realism Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857 Realism Honoré Daumier, Rue Transnonain, 1834 Realism Honoré Daumier, The Third Class Carriage, 1862 American Realism Thomas Eakins, Wm. Rush Carving his Allegorical Figure of the Schuykill River, 1876-1877 Compare with neoclassical painting of a similar subject: Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea, 1860 American Realism Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic, 1875 American Realism Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, 1893 Impressionism What is Impressionism? hyperlink: Sister Wendy: Impressions of Light (1), 10 min. • The term is applied to describe a group of artists who exhibited in Paris in the 1860s to 1880s Manet, Olympia •Impressionist subjects are often of the Parisian nouveaux-riche, enjoying themselves in Monet, Impression Sunrise leisurely activities Monet, Waterlilies • The Impressionists often made extensive use of complementary colors • The Impressionists left their brush marks visible Renoir, Boating Party (beginning) • The goal of the Impressionists was to create beautiful canvases. Creating a sense of modeled, believable 3-D space was not a priority. The Impressionists acknowledged the flatness of the canvas. • The Impressionists left their brush marks unblended and visible. The strokes of paint hyperlink: Sister Wendu Impres- sit on the surface and acknowledge the flatness of the canvas. sion of Light (2), 10 min. Artistic Freedom Renoir, Boating Party • During the second half of the 1800s, artists began to decide they had the freedom to Berthe Morisot paint anything they wanted to paint Degas, The Dance Class • The hierarchies of the Academy were eliminated (history painting at the top, still-life at Seurat, La Grande Jatte, Young the bottom, etc.) Woman Powdering herself • Artists depended less on the Salons for success. There was an increasing number of independent art dealers and galleries for exhibiting and selling art. •The Academy no longer had a monopoly on dictating style and taste Impressionism Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863 • Classical nudes had always been a favored subject of the Academy and the Parisian elite. • This nude, however, was not classical. She is an ordinary woman seated beside two men. She looks at the viewer with a frank expression. • She was a Scandal! She was considered vulgar and obscene by the elite. • The nude attacks the hypocrisy of the Academy • The style violates Academic standards as well • The lighting is unreal. The bather is lit from a different source • The sharply defined contours of the figures contrast with the background. The figures look flat and as if they were cut from another painting and pasted on this one. • There are 3 disconnected scenes: the picnic still-life, the three people and the bather. It is as if this is 3 different paintings • The bather is too large in scale to be as far in the distance as the landscape suggests. Impressionism Courbet, The Bathers, 1853 (Realism) Manet was an admirer of Courbet. In what ways does Manet’s Luncheon pay tribute to Courbet? Impressionism Édouard Manet, The Fifer, 1866 • The Fifer’s style was so anti- Academic, that it was considered laughable. •The boy is sharply defined against a contrasting background. It is as if he is a paper doll • The background does not suggest a believable 3-D space. It is as close in the foreground as the boy •The lighting is unreal. The cast shadows are too tiny for the bright light • The pant legs are not modeled. The folds are indicated by a single stroke of black paint. • Manet’s deliberate measures to “flatten” his subject acknowledges the flat surface of the canvas. Impressionism Edouard Manet, The Bar at the Folies Bergere, 1882 •Much of the composition takes place on the surface of the mirror. This re-emphasizes the flatness of the canvas • The mirror image of the Parisian bourgeois enjoying themselves contrasts with the unhappy barmaid. • The brushstrokes are left unblended and visible to sit on the surface of the canvas. This acknowledges the flatness of the canvas. • Manet’s first loyalty was to create a beautiful canvas. Creating an illusionistic window on the canvas was always secondary. Impressionism Claude Monet, On The Banks of the Seine, 1868 •Monet preferred to paint landscapes, a subject that was considered inferior by the Academy. •The painting is full of sunlight. To achieve this luminosity, black is avoided and the darkest color is the green leaves •Areas of brown are enlivened with oranges, yellows and bright greens • The sky is a flat patch of pure blue • The tree is essentially a dark, flat silhouette •There is no attempt to blend colors. The colors are left pure and unmixed--as if they are mosaic tesserae Impressionism Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881 •Renoir often painted scenes of the Parisian nouveaux-riche enjoying themselves • The scene in informally posed. It has a “snapshot” quality • There is extensive use of bright complementary colors. The yellow hats contrast with the purple garments • The short brushstrokes are left unblended and visible on the surface • Unlike the other Impressionists, Renoir never fully abandoned his classical training. His figures are fully modeled and they exist in believable 3-D space. Impressionism Edgar Degas, The Glass of Absinthe, 1876 Absinthe is a highly addictive alcoholic drink. • The pitiful woman slumps over her drink •the low light casts ominous shadows behind the figures •the zig-zag composition makes the eye restless. The front table juts into the viewer’s space •The use of diagonal compositions to suggest negative emotions was common in Japanese prints, which Degas studied. • Degas did not adopt the gay scenes and bright colors of the other Impressionists Impressionism Edgar Degas, The Tub, 1886, pastel • Radical composition. The viewer looks over a table top. • The initial contour lines of the objects are left visible. The outlines flatten the objects against their background •The contour lines are in-filled with scratchy color. The strokes of color are left unblended to sit on the surface, emphasizing the flatness of the drawing • The perspective is conflated. The objects are tipped up toward the viewer Impressionism Claude Monet, Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare St. Lazare, 1877 Impressionism Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise, 1872 Impressionism Claude Monet, Luncheon, 1874 Impressionism Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral: The Portal (Sun), 1894 Impressionism Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette (the pancake mill), 1876 Impressionism Edgar Dégas, The Ballet Class, 1879 Impressionism Edgar Dégas, Viscount