REALISM

(1848-
1910)

WHAT IS REALISM?
Realism in the arts is generally the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality
and avoiding speculative and supernatural elements.

REALISM STARTED…
The Realist movement in French art flourished from about 1840 until the late nineteenth century, and
sought to convey a truthful and objective vision of contemporary life. Realism emerged in the aftermath
of the Revolution of 1848 that overturned the monarchy of Louis-Philippe and developed during the
period of the Second Empire under Napoleon
As French society fought for democratic reform, the Realists democratized art by depicting modern
subjects drawn from the everyday lives of the working class. Rejecting the idealized classicism of
academic art and the exotic themes of Romanticism, Realism was based on direct observation of the
modern world.
Prior to the Realism movement, Romanticism was the reigning style that was used within the creation of
art. This artistic movement, which was defined by an elevated sense of emotion and intensified drama,
typically displayed exotic and mythological figures and grand scenes of nature in a glorified light. Realist
artists dismissed this within their artwork, as they believed that everyday life and the modern world
existed as appropriate subjects for art.
This anti-Romantic development paved the way for Realism in art, which sought to embrace the aims of
modernism through reexamining and overthrowing traditional values and beliefs within society. Within
the mid-19th century, Realism focused on how life was socially, economically, politically, and culturally
arranged. This led to unflinching, sometimes "ugly" portrayals of life's unpleasant moments and the use
of dark, earthy palettes that confronted high art's ultimate ideals of beauty.
Working in a chaotic era marked by revolution and widespread social change, Realist painters replaced
the idealistic images and literary conceits of traditional art with real-life events, giving the margins of
society similar weight to grand history paintings and allegories. Their choice to bring everyday life into
their canvases was an early manifestation of the avant-garde desire to merge art and life, and their
rejection of pictorial techniques, like perspective, prefigured the many 20th-century definitions and
redefinitions of modernism.

REALISM ENDED….
The Realism movement lasted around forty years from 1840 to 1880.
Amongst the dramatic changes in industry and technology during modernism, photography was singled
out as a major impetus for many artists departing from a realist style. This led to the complete
abandonment of realism
Realism was the first clearly anti-institutional and non-conformist art movement.
More over it important to note there are different kinds of realists, but they all generally constitute the
main idea of realism which is 3 different kinds of realists which are the following: classical realists, neo-
realists and neo-classical realists
FORMS OF REALISM
CLASSICAL REALIST
It emphasize the given flawed nature of human beings. Explanation based on human nature. Historical
and Philosophical
NEO REALIST
Neorealism argues that every state is always trying to change the system in order to maximize their own
benefit. A movement to depict directly poor people in society.
NEO CLASSICAL REALIST
Is an approach to foreign policy analysis that seeks to understand international politics by taking into
account the nature of the international system—the political environment within which states interact.
What is realism style in art?
Realism is an art style that focuses on making pieces look as realistic and true-to-life as possible.
Realism color palette
• Artists mainly used soft browns, warm reds, black and ivory hues.

Important people during Realism period

Gustave Courbet (1819 - 1877)

Born: June 10, 1819 - Ornans, Doubs, France

Died: December 31, 1877 - La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbetwas a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century
French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and
the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was
important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important
place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social
statements through his work.

GUSTAVE COURBET STYLE

He experimented with novel compositional strategies and a revolutionary painting technique which
included the use of thick superimposed layers of paint applied directly with a palette knife. This
approach strongly influenced Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), who began mimicking Courbet's style in the
1860s.
Courbet also painted figurative compositions, landscapes, seascapes, and still life’s. He courted
controversy by addressing social issues in his work, and by painting subjects that were considered
vulgar, such as the rural bourgeoisie, peasants, and working conditions of the poor.

Jean-François Millet (1814 – 1875)

Born: October 4, 1814 - Gruchy, in Gréville-Hague (Normandy)

Died: January 20, 1875 - Barbizon, France
Movements and Styles: Realism, The Barbizon School, Naturalism

French painter Jean-François Millet, with humble manner of living stands in stark contrast to the impact
his work had on many hose h artists who succeeded him, saw Godliness and virtue in physical labor. Best
known for his paintings of peasants toiling in rural landscapes, and the religious sub-texts that often
accompanied them, he turned his back on the academic style of his early artistic education and co-
founded the Barbizon school near Fontainbleau in Normandy, France with fellow artist Théodore
Rousseau.
Raised in a deeply religious rural farming family, Millet saw the peasant-class as most nobly fulfilling the
words of the Old Testament Book of Genesis 3:19, which read: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return." This served as a subtext in most of his paintings throughout his Barbizon years.
While most artists of the Barbizon school concentrated on landscapes painted en plein air, Millet
preferred to depict the life of ceaseless toil required of the peasant class, a social stratum for which he
had great respect. He saw himself as being thoroughly of the peasant-class, stating his discomfort in the
drawing rooms of the upper classes, and thus resolved to paint only that which he knew best.
While most artists of the Barbizon school concentrated on landscapes painted en plein air, Millet
preferred to depict the life of ceaseless toil required of the peasant class, a social stratum for which he
had great respect. He saw himself as being thoroughly of the peasant-class, stating his discomfort in the
drawing rooms of the upper classes, and thus resolved to paint only that which he knew best.
Jean-François Millet Style
• His style can be categorized as both Naturalism and religious realism.
Édouard Manet
FRENCH DRAFTSMAN AND PAINTER
Born: January 23, 1832 - Paris, France

Died: April 30, 1883 - Paris, France

Édouard Manet was the most important and influential artist to have heeded poet Charles Baudelaire's
call to artists to become painters of modern life. Manet had an upper-class upbringing, but also led a
bohemian life, and was driven to scandalize the French Salon public with his disregard for academic
conventions and his strikingly modern images of urban life. He has long been associated with the
Impressionists; he was certainly an important influence on them and he learned much from them
himself.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
AMERICAN-BRITISH PAINTER
Born: July 11, 1834 - Lowell, Massachusetts
Died: July 17, 1903 - London, England

One of the most significant figures in modern art and a forerunner of the Post-Impressionist movement,
James Abbott McNeill Whistler is celebrated for his innovative painting style and eccentric personality.
He was bold and self-assured, and quickly developed a reputation for his verbal and legal retaliations
against art critics, dealers, and artists who insulted his work. His paintings, etchings, and pastels
epitomize the modern penchant for creating "art for art's sake," an axiom celebrated by Whistler and
others in the Aesthetic movement.

Honoré Daumier
FRENCH PAINTER, SCULPTOR, PRINTMAKER, CARICATURIST
Born: February 26, 1808 - Marseille, France

Died: February 10, 1879 - Valmondois, France

The witty caricatures of Honoré Daumier made him one of the most widely recognized social and
political commentators of his day and even landed him in jail for insulting the reigning monarch.
Daumier's caricatures stand out as his most successful works, yet he remains unrecognized for the
impressive diversity of his art as he produced not only the lithographs for which he is famous but also
drawings, oil and watercolor paintings, and sculpture. Daumier pioneered a style of Realism that focused
on people of all echelons of society and spared few, with the exception of the working class and the
poor, from his sharp wit and scrutinizing eye. He lived in Paris during a period of political and social
unrest, which included two revolutions as well as frequent regime changes, a war, and a siege. Many of
his works confronted the complex social, political, and economic consequences of the turmoil. Perhaps
his greatest contribution to modern art was his ability to capture even the simplest moments in life and
infuse them with emotion.
ROSA BONHEUR (1822- 1899)

FRENCH PAINTER AND SCULPTOR

Born: March 16, 1822 - Bordeaux, Gironde, France
Died: May 25, 1899 - Thomery (By), France

From early childhood Rosa Bonheur had a liberal outlook and defiant personality, attributed in part to
her father's belief in a form of socialism whereby class and gender distinctions were radically dissolved.
As such, even though born at a time when women were not admitted to art school and most typically
became absorbed into a life of domestic dependency, this was not Bonheur's fate. With her father's
support she began to paint prolifically from her early teenage years, by mid career she had been
awarded many prestigious accolades previously only achieved by men, and in later life she was famous
and independently wealthy.
Alongside her English counter-part, Edwin Landseer, Rosa Bonheur was the foremost French "animalier"
(animal painter) of her age, and arguably of all time.
Bonheur diligently studied animal anatomy, often visiting the abattoir and calling such research,
"...wading in pools of blood...". The artist's interest in observing the world around her goes deeper than
a simple surface sentimentality. The message is that art, like medicine, is a holistic discipline with the
scientific impetus to get to the heart of what it means to be alive. How is flesh composed, and how does
a body move, and how does that in turn then feel? Bonheur was dedicated to understanding the inner
working of creatures in order to successfully convey an exterior view.
Rosa Bonheur said herself that she was 'wed to her art'. As such, her pictures become her children
painted with unfailing dedication and exquisite tenderness. She was a pioneer for an alternate family
structure, spending her life in a same sex partnership devoted to the creation and care of animals and
art works.

Rosa Bonheur, born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur, was a French artist, mostly a painter of animals but also a
sculptor, in a realist style
FAMOUS PAINTINGS DURING REALISM

Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers 1849

The Stone Breakers was an 1849 painting by the French painter Gustave Courbet. It was a work of
realism, depicting two peasants, a young man and an old man, breaking rocks. The Stone Breakers was
first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1850. As a work of realism the subject matter addressed a scene of
everyday life.

Gustave Courbet, A Burial At Ornans, 1849–50

This 22 foot long canvas situated in a main room at the Musee d'Orsay buries the viewer as if he or she
were in a cave. In a decidedly non-classical composition, figures mill about in the darkness, unfocused on
ceremony. As a prime example of Realism, the painting sticks to the facts of a real burial and avoids
amplified spiritual connotations. Emphasizing the temporal nature of life, Courbet intentionally did not
let the light in the painting express the eternal. While sunset could have expressed the great transition
of the soul from the temporal to the eternal, Courbet covered the evening sky with clouds so the
 passage of day into night is just a simple echo of the coffin passing from light into the dark of the
ground. Some critics saw the adherence to the strict facts of death as slighting religion and criticized it as
a shabbily composed structure with worn-faced working folk raised up to life-size in a gigantic work as if
they had some kind of noble importance. Other critics such as Proudhon loved the inference of equality
and virtue of all people and recognized how such a painting could help turn the course of Western art
and politics. Oil on canvas - Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Gustave Courbet, The Artist's Studio (L'Atelier du peintre): A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my
Artistic and Moral Life, 1855

This 19 foot long painting is an expression of Courbet's self-love and pride in his iron will, hard work and
revolutionary genius. Just as he heroicized others in the Burial at Ornans, he does the same for himself
in this work. With a good measure of egotism, Courbet expresses that things get done and attitudes
change when people think for themselves and challenge the status quo. Courbet places himself full-size,
brush in hand, working on a landscape picture. His friends on the right are emblematic of kindred spirits
and innovation, while the admiring boy is an expression of Courbet's confidence that his legacy will
transcend generations. The nude model standing behind the artist affirms his greatness and her role as
muse. To the left stand the working poor, Courbet's recognition of their right to be included. His
nemesis, Napoleon III, is presented as a poacher holding a firearm, accompanied by his dogs. Courbet's
chin-up gaze trumps Napoleon's downward tipped head in an expression of the innovator dominating
over the authoritarian.

Oil on canvas - Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Jean-François Millet, Harvesters Resting, 1853

A group of harvesters, dirty and tired from their labors, their tools scattered around them, rest in front
of large, golden-hued stacks of grain. On the left, a man presents a woman to the group.
Millet originally intended to depict the Biblical story of Ruth, a widow who met Boaz, the landowner and
kinsman who eventually became her husband, while she was gleaning in the fields. Showing the work at

the 1853 Salon, Millet changed the title to Harvesters Resting. One of his few works that show a group,
rather than an isolated figure, in a landscape, Millet's tableau-format composition and soft palette
indicate a knowledge of the Classical French Baroque artist Nicolas Poussin. Though it won a Second
Class medal at the Salon, the only time his work won an award, art critics like Paul de Saint-Victor said,
"these paupers don't touch me...It disgusts me to see Ruth and Naomi surveying Boaz's field as if on
stage in a theatre."
The pictorial emphasis upon the harvesters and the grain stacks behind them allows Ruth and Boaz to
appear as figures peripheral to the central focus. What has been emphasized is not the romantic Old
Testament story of faith bringing two people together, but rather a contemporary group of hot and
dusty field workers resting from their labors. Ruth's face is downcast shyly, and Boaz, acting as
intermediary, visually joining her figure with the group field workers. Thus, Millet brings into focus the
common laborer's centrality in history and scripture. Oil on canvas - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Jean-François Millet, A Winnower, 1853

The Winnower is the title of three oil on canvas paintings by French artist Jean-François Millet, created
between 1847 and 1848. The first, now held at the National Gallery, in London, was painted in 1847-
1848, and presented at the Salon of 1848.[1] Subsequently, Millet created two other versions, one kept
at the Louvre Museum, in Paris, much smaller than the original, and the other at the Musée d'Orsay,
also in Paris.

Jean-François Millet, Gleaners ,1857

Three peasant women gather grains from what's left at the end of a harvest day as the evening shadows
gather around them. In the background, a horse-drawn cart full of wheat, haystacks, sheaves of wheat, a
man on horseback, a village, and a large crowd of laborers depict the abundance of the harvest.

In Millet's day French farmers followed the Biblical injunction to leave gleanings (or left-over scraps of
the grain harvest) in the fields so that poor women and children could live on them. Millet's Gleaners
occupy the extreme foreground of the canvas. The grinding poverty of the peasant women, evident in
their rough, simple garments, and the back-breaking work of collecting individual grains appear as a
contemporaneous depiction of the Biblical directive. Shown at the 1857 Salon, the painting was
criticized for its depiction of rural poverty. One reviewer said, "These are homely scarecrows set up in a
 field: M. Millet's ugliness and vulgarity have no relief."
The painting is dominated by the sculptural figures of the three women. Arms extending toward the
ground, the emphasized lines of their shoulders and backs convey the strain of the arduous work. Each
woman is depicted engaged in a specific task; one searches for stray grain on the ground, one collects
the grains and the third ties them all together. Their faces are hidden, suggesting a sort of homogeneous
anonymity rather than individuality. As with The Sower, that anonymity allows them to represent all of
the poverty-stricken peasants of France, rather than simply these women. The contrast between the
shadows lengthening around the women and the illuminated background where the harvesters are
celebrating conveys the distinction between poverty and plenty. The distant steward on horseback,
supervising the harvest, represents social order and the privilege of distance from hard labor. The
leavings of grain, scattered on the ground, glisten like jewels against the drab color of the ground, yet
the viewer cannot help but realize how meager they really are, and how much effort the women must
make to simply live. Even so, despite their straitened circumstances, Millet bestows a certain dignity
upon them. They display a measure of quiet fortitude amidst the monotony of their efforts, and despite
the simplicity of their garb, their figures are robust, accustomed to the rigors of their working life. Oil on
canvas - Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Jean-François Millet, The Sower,1850

A man with a bag of seeds across his chest strides, long-legged across the extreme foreground of the
canvas as he flings his right arm out to scatter handfuls of seed. As he works a flock (properly known as a
'murder') of crows circles behind him on the left, and highlighted in the distance on the right, a man
behind a plow drives his team of oxen, preparing the soil for planting.
By the time Millet created this work, he had already fled Paris that was going through political upheavals
and settled in nearby town of Barbizon. What sets Millet's work apart from his Barbizon school
compatriots is that, while they emphasized landscape, particularly of the forests, he emphasized the
human figure, often a rural laborer isolated in the fields. As he said "My dream is to characterize the
type," and here, he creates the common man as laborer. The art historian Alexandra Murphy wrote,
"among countless prototypes, the illustrations for October in the Très Riches Heures of the Duke de
Berry, depicting a similar sower - capped, wearing leggings, and holding his seed bag in his left hand - is
often suggested as a source for Millet. But as with so many of his images, The Sower is more likely to
have evolved from the conflation of several well-studied visual memories."
At the Salon of 1850-51, the painting was both praised and attacked. While the art critic Clement de Ris
saw it as "an energetic study full of movement," the critic Théophile Gautier described it as "trowel
scrapings." The American poet, Walt Whitman, praised its "sublime murkiness and original pent fury,"
and saw in it the prototype of Creative Man, sowing the seeds of a new age.
As muscular and heroic as Michelangelo's figures, and looming over the landscape like Goya's giants, the
figure occupies much of the foreground, dominating the canvas. Art historian, Anthea Callen, noted,
"Millet intentionally transformed his human laborer into a sinewy giant of a man by elongating his
proportions...Reinforced by the sower's dominance of the pictorial space and our low viewpoint, his
menacing appearance to the Parisian bourgeoisie in 1850 is thus readily explicable."
Despite Millet's liberal use of shadow his use of primary colors allows the figure to stand in stark relief
against a field of earth tones. This is a practice used often and to great effect by great renaissance
masters including Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael Sanzio. The painting's sense of vigorous movement is
underscored by the wealth of dynamic angles that radiate outward from its central figure. The small
figure rendered vaguely on the sunlit horizon, tilts back, its angular line further emphasizing the
downward movement. The placement of the day's waning light behind the sower emphasizes the
shadowiness of foreground. His eyes obscured by his hat, his clothes dirty from his labors, and the crows

wheeling after him, eating up the seeds, undoing his efforts all create the sense that he is 'everyman'
trying to outrun the gathering darkness. Oil on canvas - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe (1863)

As the primary talking point of the Salon des Refusés in 1863, it is fairly clear to see why this canvas
shocked the bourgeois patrons and the Emperor himself. Manet's composition is influenced by the
Renaissance artist Giorgione and by Raimondi's engraving of the Judgment of Paris after Raphael, but
these influences are fractured by his disregard for perspective and his use of unnatural light sources. But
it was the presence of an unidealized female nude, casually engaged with two fashionably dressed men,
that was the focus of the most public outrage. Her gaze confronts the viewer on a sexual level, but
through her Manet confronts the public as well, challenging its ethical and aesthetic boundaries.Oil on
canvas - Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Olympia (1863)

Representing a lower-class prostitute, Manet's Olympia confronts the bourgeois viewer with a hidden,
but well-known, reality. Purposefully provocative, it shocked the viewers of the 1865 Salon. Olympia's
references to Titan's Venus of Urbino (1538) and Goya's Maja Desnuda (1799-1800) fit easily into the
traditional "boudoir" genre, yet they culminate in a rather informal and individual portrait of a woman
unashamed of her body. It is popularly thought that Olympia is a pictorial depiction of passages from
Baudelaire's famous collection of poems called Les Fleurs du Mal (1857). For instance, Manet rather
overtly includes a black cat, symbolizing heightened sexuality and prostitution - a characteristically
Baudelarian symbol.

The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1867-68)

France was shocked by the execution of Maximilian of Austria, Emperor of Mexico, on June 19, 1867.
The politics behind Napoleon III's withdrawal of troops from Mexico also outraged the public. This
canvas is clearly a nod to Goya's similar execution scene in The Third of May 1808 (1814). Manet was a
devout Republican and was keenly influenced by political events, and here he sought to record
contemporary events like a grand history painter, but with his own modern vision. However, the
painting's subject matter was too sensitive to be exhibited at the time, especially with the overt
implication of Napoleon III's culpability by dressing Maximilian in a sombrero and the soldiers in French
uniforms. The Romantic spirit and muted tones create a distinctly somber, yet immediate scene. Oil on
canvas - Kunsthalle, Mannheim.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (1881-82)

This melancholic café scene is undoubtedly Manet's last masterpiece. The Folies-Bergere was a popular
café concert for a fashionable and diverse crowd. The lively bar scene is reflected in the mirror behind

the central figure, the sad bar girl. Her beautiful, tired eyes avoid contact with the viewer - who also
plays a double role as the customer in this scene. Much has been made of the faulty perspective from
the reflection in the mirror, but this was evidently part of Manet's interest in artifice and reality. On the
marble countertop is an exquisite still-life arrangement of identifiable bottles of beer and liquor, flowers,
and mandarins, all of which anticipate the still lifes of his final two years of life. Oil on canvas - The
Courtauld Gallery, London

Symphony in White, No.1: The White Girl (1862)

Originally titled The White Girl, this painting depicts a young woman, Whistler's mistress and model
Joanna Hiffernan, with long, flowing red hair and wearing a simple white cambric dress. She stands on a
similarly colored bearskin rug as she grasps a white flower at her side, her distant gaze lending her a
doll-like quality. Indeed, Whistler treats her as a toy or pawn of sorts in that that artist is here less
concerned with the accuracy of portraiture as he is with using the canvas as a means of exploring tonal
variations. That Whistler later re-titled the painting Symphony in White, No.1: The White Girl to draw
attention to the varying white tones of the work and suggest a comparison between them and music
notes, clarifies this objective.

Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother (1871)
Otherwise known as Portrait of the Artist's Mother, Anna McNeill Whistler is clothed in a long black
dress with a simple white lace cap, seated in profile, steadily gazing ahead, and holding a white
handkerchief in her lap. On the wall behind her appears a reproduction of Whistler's View of the
Thames. The Japanese-inspired floral patterning on the curtain hanging at left denotes the artist's well
known interest in the Japanese aesthetic. Whistler's stylized butterfly signature is just visible at the top
right corner of this curtain. The arrangement of forms appears simple when in fact there is a careful
balancing of shapes at play. For example, the rectangular shapes of the picture on the wall, curtain at
left, and the floor help stabilize the sitter's form.

Harmony in Blue and Silver: Trouville (1865)

In this work, one of at least five paintings created by Whistler in Trouville, a solitary figure stands on a
beach, looking out across the wide expanse of water before him. The figure's gaze directs us toward two
sailboats that appear right of center along the high horizon line. The bearded man depicted on shore is
the artist's friend and Realist painter Gustave Courbet, who accompanied Whistler to Trouville in 1865
when this painting was created. Originally titled Courbet - on Sea Shore, Whistler later changed the title
to reflect his growing interest in associating his painted canvases with musical compositions. The figure
and the landscape in which he resides almost disappear into the washes of color Whistler delicately
applied through sweeping brushstrokes of thinned paint.

Rue Transnonain 15 April 1834 (1834)

This deeply disturbing image was made to commemorate the murder by the National Guard of innocent
civilians during widespread unrest in Paris during the month of April 1834. The strife had come after the
French army repressed a revolt staged by silk workers in Lyon in the South of France. According to
accounts of the tragedy, gunshots had rung out from an upper floor window at 12 rue Transnonain and
French troops responded by storming the building, opening fire, and wounding and killing residents of
the working class abode.

Gargantua (1831)

In this controversial lithograph, which was to be published in Charles

Philipon's newspaper La Caricature on December 16, 1831, Daumier
depicted the corpulent monarch Louis-Philippe seated on a throne,
gobbling bags of coins being hauled up a ramp by tiny laborers, the
coins having been wrung from the poor of France by his ministers. On
the lower right, a crowd of his poverty-stricken subjects stand
waiting miserably to turn over what little money they have. Milling
around the throne are Louis- Philippe's favorites, also
extravagantly fat; they are collecting commissions, decorations, and so
forth that are the result of the compulsory offerings of the poor.
 The Burden (The Laundress) (1850-53)

This laundress or washerwoman symbolizes the

poor, overburdened working woman and she is
accompanied by the child she struggles to support. Bent
under the weight of the heavy bag of laundry she is hauling
and against the strong wind opposing her progress, the
woman's face reflects determination rather than
despair. Empty-handed but equally somewhat thwarted, the child echoes its mother's determination. Of
course, the burden of the laundry and the strength of the wind are symbolic of the "greater forces"
against which this woman and her child are fighting: poverty, a corrupt government, civic strife, and
cyclical revolutions.

The Third Class Carriage (c. 1862-64)

The figures who occupy the wooden bench in the painting's foreground are the lower classes who are
separated from the more affluent passengers behind them. The feeling of compression that prevails in
the background is dispelled by the spaciousness surrounding the figures nearest the picture plane. In
contrast to the irritable expressions of the wealthier passengers in the background, the nursing mother,
the grandmother, and the sleeping child - all bathed in a warm, golden light - seem quite serene.
Characteristic of his sketchy style of painting, resembling the exuberance of line in his lithographs, the
figures in the foreground are voluminous, almost sculptural in their solidity. Scholars have connected
this monumental quality of Daumier's subjects to his lifelong appreciation of Peter-Paul Rubens and
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and the subject matter to his friend, Millet.
 Plowing in the
Nivernais (1849)

This large oil painting, commissioned and exhibited in

1849 by the French government, was Bonheur's first
early success. She primarily depicted animal subjects and here twelve oxen peacefully plough the land in
preparation for future planting. Her focus on the land, the animals and the landscape tell a respectful
story of timeless peasant life, work, and tradition. The humble sense of realism that emanates from the
canvas recalls that work of Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet. Similar to the Realists, Bonheur presents
man and nature working seamlessly together to yield harvest from the land.

The Horse Fair (1855)

Bonheur's most famous painting is monumental:

eight by sixteen feet. She dedicated herself to
the study of draft horses at the dusty, wild horse
market in Paris twice a week between 1850 and
1851 where she made endless sketches, some simple line drawings and others in great detail. Her ability
to capture the raw power, beauty and strength of the untamed animals in motion is superbly displayed
in this dramatic scene. In arriving at the final scheme, the artist drew inspiration from George Stubbs,
Théodore Gericault, Eugène Delacroix, and ancient Greek sculpture: she herself referred to The Horse
Fair as her own "Parthenon frieze." The Parthenon featured rows of rearing writhing horses in sculpted
muscular relief.

Weaning the Calves (1879)

This relatively small painting, less than six feet sqaure, depicts a real life situation in the rustic mountain
home of a mother and her calves. The stalwart cow stands watch while her five calves remain separated
from her by a barrier of fallen wood, rocks, and debris. The artist shows us a version of fence-line
weaning in which the calves see and hear their mother but are forced to find food and water for
themselves.

SCULPTURES
The Celebrities of the Juste Milieu (1832-35

Daumier's most consistent employer and patron for decades of his artistic career was Charles Philipon.
Along with his brother-in-law, Gabriel Aubert, Philipon established La Maison Aubert, which was a
publishing house that specialized in political and social commentary. The company's satirical journals, Le
Charivari and La Caricature, frequently published Daumier's often controversial lithographs. In 1832,
Philipon commissioned the artist to produce a series of caricature busts. Of the original 40, 36 remain
and are part of the Musée d'Orsay's permanent collection,
although they were initially kept in the workshop of La Maison
Aubert.

Ratapoil (c. 1851)

This character, whom Daumier illustrated in
a series of nearly 30 lithographs that were
published in the journal Le Charivari between 1850
and 1851, depicts a specific type of person on the
political stage of the day. Ratapoil represents, says the Musee d'Orsay, "the shady
agent, the indefatigable representative of Napoleonic propaganda." Daumier, a
devoted Republican, was attacking the pro-Bonapartist propaganda disseminated by
agents working in the service of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, of whom this figure,
Ratapoil, is a fictive type. Bonaparte, who had been elected to a four-year term of
leadership in 1848, was pressing for further control in the way of an imperial restoration. The word
Ratapoil translates as "skinned rat." Yet, officially - as presented by a dictionary of the 19th century
(Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe siècle) - Ratapoil, the nickname, referred to "a supporter of
militarism, and particularly of Napoleonic militarism."

Walking Bull (1846) Ram and Ewe (1870)

 Ewe, or A Grazing Sheep, model (2nd half 19th century)

ARCHITECTURES

"IRON structure

• Historicism style-different periods combined.

Urban redevelopment plan for Paris by

Napoleon III

. Based on Baroque Style.

. It has mirrors on columns for ladies

to check their hair.

Artist: It was buit by the engineer Gustave Eiffel and his colleagues. Chronology: Was built between 1887
ans 1889.

Material: Wrought Iron.

Present location: Champ de Mars in

Paris (France).
Designer: Augustus Roebling

Location: New York City.

Built: 1867-1883

Greatest construction

achievement of era.

REALISM IN MODERN TIME

Realism is back. Realistic, or representational, art fell out of favor with

the advent of photography, but today's painters and sculptors are
reviving old techniques and giving reality a whole new spin. Check out
these six dynamic approaches to realistic art.
And there are six types of realism art:Photorealism, Hyperrealism,
Surrealism, Magic Realism,
Metarealism, Traditional Realism

PHOTOREALISM - Artists have used photography for centuries. In the

1600s, the Old Masters may have experimented with optical devices. During the 1800s, the
development of photography influenced the Impressionist Movement. As photography became more
sophisticated, artists explored ways modern technologies could help create ultra-realistic paintings.
The Photorealism Movement evolved during the late 1960s. Artists tried to produce exact copies of
photographed images. Some artists projected photographs onto their canvases and used airbrushes to
replicate details.

HYPERREALISM- Hyperrealism is Photorealism on hyperdrive. Colors are crisp, details more precise, and
subjects more controversial. Hyperrealism—also known as Super-realism, Mega-realism, or Hyper-
realism—employs many of the techniques of trompe l'oeil. Unlike trompe l'oeil, however, the goal is not
to fool the eye. Instead, hyperrealistic art calls attention to its own artifice. Features are exaggerated,
scale is altered, and objects are placed in startling, unnatural settings.
SURREALISM- Composed of dream-like images, Surrealism strives to capture the flotsam of the
subconscious mind. Surrealism remains a powerful movement that reaches across genres. Paintings,
sculpture, collages, photography, cinema, and the digital arts depict impossible, illogical, dream-like
scenes with life-like precision.

MAGIC REALISM- Somewhere between Surrealism and Photorealism lies the mystical landscape
of Magic Realism, or Magical Realism. In literature and in the visual arts, Magic Realists draw upon the
techniques of Traditional Realism to depict quiet, everyday scenes. Yet beneath the ordinary, there's
always something mysterious and extraordinary.

METAREALISM- Art in the Metarealism tradition doesn't look real. Although there might be recognizable
images, the scenes depict alternate realities, alien worlds, or spiritual dimensions. Metarealism evolved
from the work of early 20th century painters who believed that art could explore existence beyond
human consciousness.

TRADITIONAL REALISM- Traditional Realism is straightforward and detached.The painter or sculptor

exercises artistic skill without experimentation, exaggeration, or hidden meanings. Abstraction,
absurdity, irony, and wit do not play a role because Traditional Realism values beauty and precision
above personal expression.