Avant-Garde:

Realism
- Academy training was seen as
very rigid, so some French artists
attempted to break away.
!
-Avant-Garde = “Advanced Guard”
or “vanguard”
!
- These artists attempted to form
new ideas and methods to lead Gustave Courbet. The Stone Breakers (1849). Oil on Canvas.
Destroyed in World War II.
France in the future.
Avant-Garde:
Realism
- Corot (1796 - 1875) took
a more romantic, less
political approach to
painting.
!
- Began painting
landscapes, but then
moved to more intimate
scenes of rural France.
!
- The brushwork is very
brisk and “feathery”.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. First Leaves, Near Mantes (c. 1855). Oil on
Canvas. 13” x 18”. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
 Avant-Garde: Realism

Rosa Bonheur. The Horse Fair (1853 - 1855). Oil on Canvas. 8’ x 16’ 7”.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Bonheur in 1865.

- Rosa Bonheur (1822 - 1899) was one of the most popular painters of farm life.
!
- Studied zoology books and visited slaughterhouses to learn about the animals.
!
- Displayed 8 paintings at the Salon of 1848 and won a first-class medal.
Rosa Bonheur. The Horse Fair (1853 - 1855). Oil on Canvas. 8’ x 16’ 7”. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

- The Horse Fair is based on a French horse market, marbles from the Parthenon, and
Géricault’s paintings.
!
- Seen as commentary for the lack of women’s rights.
!
- Bonheur was the first woman awarded the Legion of Honor, the highest award in France.
 Avant-Garde:
Realism
- At mid-century, Salons opened
exhibitions to non-academic artists.
!
- Massive amounts of art were
submitted - and rejected.
!
- Nearly 3,000 works were rejected in
1863 and protests erupted.
!
- Napoleon III (nephew of Napoleon and
President/Emperor of France) tried to
ease tensions by opening the Salon des
Refuses (Salon of the Rejected Ones)
!
- One of the rejected artists was
Édouard Manet (1832 - 1883).

Photograph of Édouard Manet by Nadar.

 Avant-Garde:
Realism
- Manet was born in Paris
and had become a painter
of Realism...influenced by
his poet friend, Charles
Baudelaire.
!
- Luncheon on the Grass
(1863) was one of these
rejected Salon paintings.
!
- Painting is seen as
immoral and scandalous...
!
Édouard Manet. The Luncheon on the Grass (1863) Oil on canvas. 7’ x 8’ 8”. - ...but the painting style is
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
just as scandalous!
 Avant-Garde:
Realism
- Two bourgeois (middle-
class) men sit with two
women for a suburban
picnic.
!
- Manet’s brother-in-law
(left) and his brother (right)
are seen.
!
- The nude woman is
Manet’s wife (body) and his
favorite model, Victorine
Meurent (face).
Édouard Manet. The Luncheon on the Grass (1863) Oil on canvas. 7’ x 8’
8”. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
 Avant-Garde: Realism
- Viewers immediately thought the women were
prostitutes and the men their clients = immoral!
!
- Manet painted this as an ode to European art
and painting.

Édouard Manet. The Luncheon on the Grass

(1863) Oil on canvas. 7’ x 8’ 8”. Musée d’Orsay,
Paris, France.

Titian. Concert Champêtre (1510) Oil on

canvas. The Louvre, Paris, France.
 the last word
in painting...
!
- Mary Cassatt on
Manet’s
“Boating” (1874).

Édouard Manet. Boating

(1874) Oil on canvas.
The Met, New York.

- Manet submitted work to every Salon, but when he was rejected in 1867, he rented a hall
and showed work by himself...Victorine Meurent was accepted for this Salon.
!
- This daring act made him the leader of a group of progressive artists (Monet, Degas,
Pissarro, and Renoir) who met at least once a week at Café Guerbois in Montmartre.
 - Victorine Meurent modeled for this
painting also known by the name,
Woman with Parrot.
!
- Exhibited at the Salon of 1868.

Édouard Manet. Young Woman in 1866 (1866).

Oil on canvas. 6’ x 4’ 2”. The Met, New York.

Édouard Manet. Young Woman in 1866
(1866). Oil on canvas. 6’ x 4’ 2”. The Met, New
York.
Avant-Garde: Realism
Gustave Courbet. Woman with a Parrot (1866). Oil on canvas.
4’ 3” x 6’ 5”. The Met, New York.
- Courbet exhibited at the Salon of 1866 a painting
of a woman with a parrot...scattered clothing and
messy hair were seen as shocking.
!
- Critics mocked Manet, saying, “he simply
borrowed the parrot from his friend Courbet.”
Gustave Courbet. Woman with a Parrot (1866). Oil on canvas. 4’ 3” x 6’ 5”. The Met, New York.
 - The Folies-Bergère (fo-lee
bear-jer) was a famous
nightclub frequented by
Manet and friends.
!
- One of the most elaborate
variety-show venues in
Paris, showcasing
entertainment ranging from
ballets to circus acts.
!
- Shows gender/social class
relations.

Édouard Manet. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1881-1882) Oil on canvas.

38” x 51”. Coutauld Gallery, London, England.
Avant-Garde: Realism
- The young girl has a reddish face and her
hands are scrubbed raw.


- She refuses to meet the eyes of her client

and stares blankly.
!
- She is seen as an object, not a person.
!
- This was the last major work by Manet
who showed it at the 1882 Paris Salon
exhibition just one year before his death.




 Avant-Garde: Realism
- The painting was heavily critiqued
because of the misinterpreted angle of the
woman and bar patron in the mirror. 



- The installation of a mirror opposite the
painting, the dominant motif of which is
itself a mirror, sets up a play of reflections
encouraging visitors to reflect on the
optical problems that Manet’s painting
poses.
Édouard Manet. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
(1881-1882) Oil on canvas. 38” x 51”. Coutauld
Gallery, London, England.

Édouard Manet. Study for A Bar at the Folies-

Bergère (1881) Oil on canvas. Coutauld Gallery,
London, England.
 Folies-Bergère in Paris circa 1890.

Folies-Bergère in Paris today.

A crowd at Folies-Bergère waiting for a concert.
Russian Realism

Ilya Repin. Bargehaulers

on the Volga (1870 -
1873). Oil on canvas. 4’ 4”
x 9’ 3”. State Russian
Museum, St. Petersburg,
Russia.

- After the abolishment of serfdom in 1863, some artists focused on the peasants’ freedom
as well as the St. Petersburg Academy of Art (SPAA), which had controlled Russian art
since 1754.
!
- “The Wanders” group was formed and was a traveling group who wanted to bring art to the
people.
!
- Ilya Repin (1844 - 1930) attended the SPAA then studied in Paris, but joined the Wanders
in 1789 when he returned to Russia.
Ilya Repin. Bargehaulers on the Volga (1870 - 1873). Oil on canvas. 4’ 4” x 9’ 3”. State Russian Museum, St.
Petersburg, Russia.

- Repin painted a series that focused on the social injustices in Russia, including
Bargehaulers which shows men pulling a boat along the Volga River.
!
- The young boy is seen as a call to action…he will soon become like the other men if things
do not change.
 American Realism
- Winslow Homer (1836 - 1910) was born in Boston, worked as an
illustrator for Harper’s Weekly covering the Civil War then spent 10
months in France.
!
- After spending 1881 - 1882 in a poor fishing village in England, he
dedicated his art to focus on heroic themes of man vs. nature.

Winslow Homer in 1880.

Winslow Homer. The Life

Line (1884). Oil on
canvas. 28” x 44”.
Philadelphia Museum of
Art.
Winslow Homer. The Life Line (1884). Oil on canvas. 28” x 44”. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Winslow Homer. The Gulf Stream (1884). Oil on canvas. 28” x 49”. The Met. New York.
American Realism
- Edmonia Lewis (c. 1845 - 1911)
attended Oberlin College with the
help of abolitionists.
!
- She was able to move to Rome in
1867 b/c of money made from
busts of abolitionists and Civil War
heroes.
!
- Forever Free (1867) is a memorial
to the Emancipation Proclamation
(1863).
!
- Appeals to white viewers by
reflecting a submissive woman
below the man.

Edmonia Lewis. Forever Free (1867).

Marble. Height 41”. Howard University Art
Gallery, Washington, D.C.
American Realism
- Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859 - 1937) was the most
successful African-American painter of the late-19th
and early-20th centuries.
!
- Grew up in Philadelphia and sporadically studied
with Thomas Eakins at the Philadelphia Academy of
Fine Arts.
!
- Worked as a photography and drawing teacher in
Atlanta before moving to Paris in 1891.

Thomas Eakins. Henry Ossawa Tanner

(1900). Oil on canvas. 24” x 20”. The Hyde
Collection, Glens Falls, New York.

Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1907.

- Paintings focused on African-
American life...or the “serious and
pathetic side of life” as Tanner called it.
!
- Later, his paintings turned biblical
after a trip to Palestine in 1897.

Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Banjo

Lesson (1893). Oil on canvas. 49” x 35”.
Hampton University Museum, Virginia.