Realism and Impressionism

Realism, in contrast to the previous art movements, was a derivative-more specifically, a derivative of the earlier Neoclassic and Romantic art movements.

The Realist style was inspired by the idea that painting must illustrate all the features of its subjects, including the negative ones. It was also showed the lives of ordinary people as subjects that were as important as the historical and religious themes that dominated the art exhibitions of the day. The artist who represented this movement most forcefully was Gustave Courbet (1819–77), a flamboyant and outgoing personality who outraged conventional audiences by showing a painting of ordinary workmen repairing a road at the official government-sponsored Salon. This work, called The Stonebreakers (1849–50), also had political implications in the context of a wave of revolutions that spread across Europe beginning in 1848. Realism can also be seen in the works of Honoré Daumier and Jean Francois Millet.

Pictured below: The Stonebreakers(1849), by Gustav Courbet

Impressionism grew out of disdain with the systematic rules that had come to dominate the Salons held to recognize selected artists each year. Édouard Manet (1832–83) is sometimes referred to as the first Impressionist. Although he refused to consider himself as one of the Impressionists, Manet’s work,

which showed light by bright, contrasting colors, nonetheless greatly inspired and influenced the generation of artists following him. Manet’s painting Le Dejéuner sur L’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) (1863) was deemed as unacceptable. The scandal surrounding this work resulted from its violation of the unwritten rule

that the only appropriate nudes in contemporary artwere classical figures or women in suitably exotic settings. In Luncheon on the Grass, however, Manet based his work on an engraving with a classical subject matter: he showed contemporary clothed men with a nude woman as part of the group. This caused an uproar.

While Manet continued to submit his work to the Salon, other artists who disagreed with the rigid artistic standards espoused by the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and favored by the Salon set about establishing Impressionism as a new style. A work by Claude Monet (1840–1926) was the source of the movement’s name. Monet showed a work that he called Impression, Sunrise (1872), and the critics seized on this mere “impression” as a means by which to ridicule the movement. Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) and Alfred Sisley (1839–99) were two other Impressionists of note.

Pictured below: Impressionist:Sunrise, by Claude Monet