Style and Civilization Linda Nochlin] Penguin BooksI The Nature of Realism Realm, at an historical movement in the figurative aes and in atte atsined ia most coherent and consstent formulation ia France, with echoes, parallels and variants elsewhere on the Con tient, in England ang inthe United States. Preede by Romaat Gam and followed by whac is now generally termed Symbolism, wit the dominant movement from about 1840 antl ye-to is tim was to give auth, objective and impattal representation ot ihe Teal World, based on fieticulous Observation of contemporary Me-This deta ne the dretol of the pesca ray, but inevitably ries 2 number of quesdons, For whereas such terms as Mannersm, Baroque or Neocasicnm « whatever df tales they may present © ate gencrally used to define categories, proper fo the vioual at the woed Realars nals eotly conneced with centtl philosophical sues. In order to isolate the peculiar implications of Realant considered a an histori Trovementr drecion nthe art, we mu et probleme arising out of the difrene and som Sppoted senses in which the term ea be used ‘A basic cause of the confusion bedevilling the notion of Realism is its ambiguous relationshi expected - of recognizable views of people, things or places, but of large striped or stained canvases and mammoth constructions of ply- wood, plastic or metal. The title chosen by the organizer was neither ly mystifying nor capricious. Ie was a contemporary manifesta- tion of a k ‘Western thought since th . which opposes “true to ‘mere appearance’. “All things have two faces’, declared the sixteenth-century theologian, Sebastian Franek, “because God de cided to oppose himself to the world, to leave appearances to the /latter and to take the truth and the essence of things for himself." This is an extreme statement of 2 notion which echoes down through the aesthetic theory of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. “True ies beyond immediate sensation and the objects we see every day’, said Hegel. ‘Only what exists in itself is eal. .., Art digs an abyss between the appearance and illusion of this bad and perishable world, fon the one hand, and the true content of events on the other, to re- clothe these events and phenomena with a higher reality, bora of the mind. . . . Far from being simple appearances and ordinary eeal nanifestations of art possess a hi acy Baudelaire self was most teal and was ‘only completely true e the things of this world were merely 4 jonaty’. Many of the most vociferous opponents of Realism based higher and more pe: ‘The commonplace notion that Rea pacent styl than any other styl to phenomenal data ~ the donne ~ is as complex and difficit as that * of Romanticism, the Baioque or M concerned, however, the itu is greatly of both its supporters and opponents, sroring_ everysay from che belief that perception cov time ox place. But is pure perception ~ percep wore - ever possible? Ts printing, no matter how honest or koowledge and technique even by his choice Of brusistzokes- in conveying three-cimensional space and f onto two-dimensional picture plane Even in photog cies csr fo flling the demand for ana he pot Fapher’s choice of viewpoint, length of exposure, siz. of for Epuming and bo on, intervene between the abject and the ioage g Pe Wels interpose the ba betwen reader sxperene, 0 hingand fucnitare wit et passages of conversation, pposed to our atu more eee lowing consciousness of expedene i later developed by such writers as Proust, Virginia Sincma has been described by Mode Bains a re-cestion ofthe worn is own image, an mage eepretation ofthe artist oF the he ie ‘of the asp) grapes could have le of birds, the old story reve: tagie world of pare nd cters ae seeprical shout the possibility of ataning this am, a tinot petybeeatve pt their and oat ~ equally obsessive ~ pee- secupation with and studied and put into the light by painting. ... ‘The portrait of the ‘as much as the porteait of a ince in his golden robes.’ For the Realists there were no ready-made istic subjects. One of theis chief proselytizers, Dutunty, declared: ‘In realty nothing is shocking; ia the sun, ags ate as good ssimperial vestments.’ Claude Lantier, Zola's Realist artist-hero pre ferred a pile of eabbages to all the picturesque medievalism of the 's and proclaimed that a bunch of carrots, ditectly observed ively painted on the spot was worof workers gulping down their midday soup beneath the iron and ass roof of Les Halles. ‘The Realists placed a p ‘on the depiction of the low, the 'as well as the more prosperous sectors of contemporary life. They urned for inspiration co the worker, the peasant, the laundress, the prostitute, to the middle-class or working-class café or bal, to the prosaic real cotton broker or the modiste, to th ¢ Jules or Edmond Goncourt. Indeed, Goncousts who state the issue most strongly, in their famous preface {0 Germinie Lacertee of 1864; time of universal sufiage, democracy, het what one calls ‘the Lower classe’ have ‘ulleings of the poor and humble could touch oa a5 sharply as the suferings ofthe eich and mighty \gland, Walter Bagehor said that ‘the character of the poor is aan unfit topic for contiauous art’ and attacked Dickens because his poor people were ‘poor talkers and poor people to read abou’. Similarly the characters in Courbet’s Burial at Oran grotesque’. But, despite all opposition, Re: Continent et d to afirm the right of the ierary and artistic status. Stone-breakers, rag-pickers, beggars, street-walkers, laundresses, railway workers and miners now began novels, not as picturesque background 4 peasant went deeper M4 truth. This demand became a moral as w sestheticimperative. In the words of G. in Arti 1858 as an epistemological or Lewes, wei oftheir case. 1 passage reminds one how close George Eliot was to'the Realists, Courher fa their craggy Features and reprehensible hist appare ss, clumsy an be equated by his admirers with an honest attempt to express ject matter, and by his enemies with a deplorable lack of delicacy and decorum. Indeed, it was not to Courbet’s subjects that some of his most violent opponents objected, but to his c ase in all good faith, he has represented bourgeois, peasant lage women in natural size’, ve critic Perrier replied: isnot because he has painted bourgeois or peasants that M. Courbet anobject as was made “che funeral ofa peasant is not less touching to us tha Phocion. The important thing is to avoid localizing the subject, in addition, to emphasize the interesting port Though itis difficule son admiration for lower-class themes at face value there can be I f own eyes and in those of Realists were aiming for far more than a mere expan matter. The premium placed on that most controversly towards the middle of the nineteenth concept of ‘authen: ch required of | became a Realist battle-cry. Bante : the impedimenca of For although the Realist reftained from moral comment in his itude towards act implied a moral commitment, to 1 of received ideas. dedication to objective, impa al stand, Never before had the qualities of sincerity and be valued, of of Rousseau’s uncoreupted iplined quest for objective » reality characteristic of the new man of science. Sincerity (which forFroamo-n i fs DISS 7a _ PECTED Gene MODS 46 disappear from the -starred play s, useny devoid of the small-scale, pstronizingly pctpresque ey agence png of ina themes recep acmiable, tn che eyes of ighthinking ayo-jioatthe very moment ad deprived these very lower ea the baad 1848, In 1851 the s¢ 7 cena threatening pos wi Workshops, they had defeated the proltar chy ppd el agave sescl out of pots, eappestng in painting! Ohare di theze peasants and sto Dress come ftom, these starvelings these i alealy presing forward among the See apibe plomed gentlemen of he Middle Ages? Were these cer vamguandof those Jacques” whomaa ansious publ wi el onehes in their hands and nape on thei tihedlections of 18)?" Thus Coste #830 painting, spl been helt Sibjectmacet wereseen aa threat tothe sae af the middleclasses. Thovgh far om being outand-o 47statements of socal prin : the lef day beeause of their radical pictorial "As Thoré pointed out, not only did they take conten porary lower-class subject aureus, but they treated them a Worthy ofa monumental sale. Ach furthermore, ey were diteety vlad ar of the people’ fel, since it was co populat art and the Holland, Spain and France ~ forms recetly tion. Inthe eyes of his eupporers, Courbee was 3 the demand for aa at that was, simultaneously, both socially sigacan and s oAect I be seen in the very pictorial stractor of such work asthe Bria et Oman (39) By Seemingly caual and foruitovs azrangement ~ without begianin, dale or end ~ by it lac of selectivity and hence is implied tee tion oF any accepted hiesachy of values, by its uniform sichnest of derail which tends o give an equal emphatis to every clement and thas produces, as ie were, 4 pistoraldemocsney, a compontional ‘ultarome, by ite sitplcty, vvatdness and lack of ll ba tent sheose, it could be seen asa patadigim forthe puernte bland dea tselt. As exemplifed in such works, racy were expressions ofthe same nalve an of and challenge so -thestatus quo, Viewed from the opposite ‘ofdecorum were, of course, ‘what he teemed re which good eis find teraare ofthe aeteenth century, ‘spolitien. An unostentaions wlty mastchati. tetze its creations, he wrote in The Engh Contain of 1869. At about thes France, Baudelaire was fulininatng againt the versal bestaliy’ of his day, a “rotalized and pluttonout soley rateal possessions, and, in the same breath, aginst a eran trary method called resim a disgusting asl thrown in he face of vey sational etson a rague aod dante word ‘hich sigaifis for che vulgar ot # new method of creation bat & Not all Realist shared Courbe's well defined sade views. But theis aneagonism to the increasing democratisation - ome would have called it debasement of ocety was no bat to thie depicting st in all its vivid actuality. For, as Aled de Vigay had prophetically announced in his Réfeions sr awit dans Part‘ eters today study of the general destiny of societies is no less aecestary thas analysis ofthe human heart’ Flaubert, who disclaimed any alaion withthe Realist movement - ‘T hate what is conventionally realism, though people egacd me as one of its high priest’ a openly scoraful ofthe mediocre pretensions and nauseaing ahavus the lower-middle-class binguerers of 1848 and took no asive gore in any of the events of his day, contenting himself with ha present as a spectator’ at neaely a Flaubert who ereated the most striking and vetate image of the revolutionary epoch in L Edection senimentale Coutbet frankly admieed the provincial virtues of his native Franche-Comté, going so fur as co imitate the counteyihan In the brusqueness and vigour of his own mannezs. Millet a his wore ‘whed the farm hand in an auea of bycolispltiude, aad at he beg conveyed real sense ofhow it feleto be chained likes beastofbunden tnd the seasons [21]. Zola descended to the lowest depths of society in order ¢o demonstrate the inevitable effects of heres xorable depredations of an unjust social system. But agai ubert who, despising the moband all its works, nevertheless ~image: Dussasder, the Seiless and unselfconsci 1 Baucationsentieniale, Cathérine Leroux the mi a derisory award fox a ‘Mademe Bony and the unforgestable F Tmpie onquestioningly accepting he weitade, redeemed only by the pen stuffed pasrot. Tee Pefjctidious snobs, the de Goncourts, 28 jealous of their parholeasof thes relereaccollection, no les than the democrat cea er gola, sooght their documentation in the seamiet ai Me chough theie motives may be questioned. nthe sesso Jounal the Gencouts constantly eloped sel Ose Paes oF rnate contact with the “people” ~ their faithful maid-sery i pad the andelicacy eo involve themvin het sordid private Wife Stivhich point she served a8 the unw heroine of thie study of beneath-stais soci eal Monet and Degas, reactionary, were a8 jppearances of theit 2ace rr fovand r870s as Courbet had been inthe 1830s. And epoch in he eoincidence that Baudelaire, the Goncourts eng the left-wing Das thet, Zola and Manet - were all note of esp serious encounters with the ‘Hegel powers of the Establishm: {ithe social engagement of Re overt statement of social aims of any Out SSlerable political conditions, But the me appearances, ance, We (porary social situation and might thas constitutes eepatues and power structutes as menacing as the cae police censorship prevented Manet. from Wy bjective’ Execntonaf the Emperor Maximilian xh Tchographs of the same subject. “The anarchist paints “Geate anarchist pictures’, wrote Signac ia 7 wealth, without desize for Crth all his individuality against fof a personal contribution.” Al- he poltcal, situation had radically Sr Signa’ statement hold good im the personal contribution TOWARDS AN HISTORICAL DEFINITION Realism has sometimes been regarded a a progressive and pena Bea et ee Seete Beeigh the cemae stn concenteted fore in the nineteenth en vine Auerbach, in his remarkable Mim, fr example, aces Tetclopment from the time of Homer and the Bible onwards sap iereand atcshave imagined they were realistic Nietsche ssodamntealwayshavedoneso sndthat realm naztis y/ hatin so fara the Rea writers i reality, they shared this concern with the wets gatess of every other age, And In arene, as we have already Stes Resin merely betrays anlsion peels tothe id envary the ilusion that had found a key what reall eoturyRealom smatkedby certain chara Constable to that of mnberg,- one is bound to adm sratked bya desize for ve “can beno perception ina couleur ‘System for recording it, unaffected by boi ergonality and milieu, Bven w movement itself, a sincere desire to record the verities of ‘on plin air led Monet to convey his perceptions with open et oe things a they are ws intepr sibel tet worth tel Hetage andthe ery ovaluuons areas much shaped by dhe status quo they ‘Toyulnons ess moch shaped by the states quo they ese aga ne tibores goal owns wich ey save, And even Tete gurion by mying tation sil by de b> inadea very stsingent effort their way through to new.sca fomunons of hei expres, Yoh a seal oomsnton of i pe Rea mph of «vase mat Be oe esperar ey word iw on ye eontemporas, bo 20 mates oo oe oven nay have Frosaed noun and en prey ae hoa arts pte acevo ep evant of the age spk for elo ey moe aca ta the fl 2 a ork sah 2 goton hs et ments of er sadn gladly objet, beh con sparious aac me pdestan fact that what these isola Yee Sant eal tory all but an up to-date version se Sgn ea cosa Ftd 0 He egies aces tan gages more sper ra ae tng ote oe say than dow he Pyare goer vee in «Dep ops ‘s which can be penetrated ity only ae ee png by ert vhs coment an cbrece ental renenotnd _ corse adatenhcentary thor eee lariat ony all-sficent expla Pat a ot omar Nantn ar utanttacony 9 ase ng caer clears explanation that all he wants do th comput tien, In both eves te ements POE NES, to Heer 0 Us but has provides complete explanation Wi 17 sag Po pont deal Fartber Searching beneath he srfce woul ee of the euace sl By the same COED, on ws welt cope Man Bocons stacrent that Courbet say ggg into Switaeiand. Bat we shou poruait of 844 OF g contention at Cousbet had no formal eaiing or St oat spontancouly a an appl ee prods 2 ee investi eva ta hs consenon #2 AES ro ia of Relat ideology 2 Che pnngt or 20~38 duced by the movers and angi, Sometimes, ndedy the me SMporaty spokesman for a movement is ata considers ano pony amply beenve era contemporsy 2nd this raya ely both hus conscious passions ands uncon sacri or about de natre of his sob 2 [As a case in point, certain modern writers seem to accept the sineteenth-century view, generally widespread among both the s’ supporters and echoed in darker tones by their opponents, eir's was an age without values, without a cohesive system of Thad lost the past but not yet re-erected a present ins for the future, despite its undeniable material 1nd technological progress. Some, like the Goncourts, accepted this unhappy fact with cynicism and nostalgia. Baudelaire raged againstit with apocalyptic despsie, Pissarro and Manet appreciated the new openness of possibility it offered the artist. Others, like Comte or Foutier, consciously set about building up complex, improved, secular systems of value which they thought more appropriate to the reeds of the time than outworn religious creeds. In England, Germany and France there were remarkably coherent attempts to rational, yet emotionally satisfying ‘secular regi Ideological systems: Positivism, Socialism, Anarchism, Fourierism. ‘What with these and the fervour of Carlyle, the radical transvaluation 'sof Nietzsche, the missionary zeal of Ruskinand Morsis - was there ever a cent fed, and so self-consciously and ‘on values and their re-establishment on more rational, iy, more humanly-tatisfying grounds the triumph of sci critical method, it also sew the cteation of the Religion of Humanity and Dialectical Materialism, ‘world views which are based on the premise that critical observation and the testing of experience are themselves values, and means to greater human freedom and tichness of possibility. formulated credos from creative work y betoken the want ing scheme of values or beliefs. The works of the Impressionists, as much as those of any medieval craftsman of renais since Humanist, are related to a world view, a context of inter- dependent beliefs and ideas about what is good and bad, true and false, the nature of existence and the means for investigating it. There ermediary periods’ ‘only periods which are more or the procedures, and temper: century is particulatly complex moment. But this complexity should not force us to accept unctitically the raw materials of history as, history{Ta historical reality there are no fabulae rasae even for those | who most wish that there were or might be - like Monet wishing that he had been born blind, or Pissarro demanding the destruction of the 3Louvre. Merely o state such s desire implies a whole series of undes- Iping presuppositions which, though unvoiced and pethaps 5. systematized, are no less relevant to the work of than ois belief in the divinity of Christ. An a Meeness of expression of a viewpoint is proof of neither “The new cxypto-religious and lues of the centmry were, itis true, often difficult for artists co real senh cay degree of aesthetic or intellectual adequacy. Allegorica! fepresentations of Electricity may be mas of the scientific spitit than aa Impressi they are Tdly more adequate. Similarly, a wi starving workers is not necessa Social realities than Madame Bu Complicated when we remember that Realist work jk) are themsel 1 structure of their period, : ofan abstract cre Madame Bavary and the Impressionist landscape are both as Sauch a part of the social reality ofthe nineteenth century as jon of the Communist Manifesto and similarly ‘about looked at reality. It he nineteenth century at all without borsowing the sragery of a Monet oc a Renoir view of Paris, 2 Dickensian descrip: Fon ofa London slum, a Courbet of a Millet peasant "The problem of why the Realists chose to paint what they did and rejected other possibi the way they did, is era peasants ot everyday subjects were avai Prter all, been available as subject matter to Ray Tectuse the older, more traditional subjects were ‘outwor Tongereelevant”~ that is simply an easy way of saying that they were obangee being painted, Paincers chose as they did because of cersin ne nudes of mind, stated or unstated, often unconsciously assimilated central to the Realist ‘The question of w! 22} completely out B his sketches for the Panthéon mural B secting, us 2 Woman i te Garde, 866-7. Cade Monet i mid nineteenth-century ince arcane scheme of social palingenesis which Chenevard worked : although, on the susface, ing has no ‘intellectual content’ at all. Yet why, at this, moment, did it become so important to pai Monet p a large scale canvas on ight effect of figures and ins as models? It is, of course, essential to know a great deal more about the 8ic world of the period as well as a great deal about re this question. But these import rory and cannot sup} important toa young and uneoavet is not been the case for the innovating Delco cr tan for vw of the quest ‘aderstand them if we take chem at face value ~ or even jon pat on them by their contemporaries. 2 Death in the Mid Nineteenth Century al shetoric