Realism

“The attempt in art and literature to depict life as it really is, without sentimentalizing or

idealizing it” (Adventures 950).

Keeping it Real

Overly dramatic and idealized art like the painting above, were a thing of the past. Likewise, dramatic, imaginative, and sentimental literature like The Birthmark, are abandoned.

Romanticism vs. Realism

Both are paintings of churches. One is Romantic, the other, Realist. Which is which?

Art and literature moves away from the fantastic and idealized and begins to depict the everyday lives of

ordinary people.

The Stone Breakers

Prior to paintings like this, by Gustave Courbet, few people

painted or wrote about the working class.

Why did artists and writers suddenly gain interest in depicting the plight of people that had, for many generations, been ignored?

The SowerArtists began to paint pictures depicting the difficulties and plight of the working class,

a segment of the population that had

seldom been the focus of artistic or

literary works.

Copley’s Watson and the Shark

So, instead of showing an overly dramatic, idealized scene of a shark attack…

Daumier’s Third Class Carriage

…artists and writers sought to depict the ordinary lives of

ordinary people.

If this painting were done today, how do you think

the subject matter and setting would be

changed?

Observed Fact

Writers and artists placed less emphasis on imagination (like Masque of the Red Death) and

more emphasis on observed fact.

Anshutz’s Ironworkers at Lunch

Search for Truth

The growing importance of

science, brought on largely by Darwin’s

new theory of evolution, creates

an increased interest in art and

literature that depicts life as it is

rather than how it is imagined to be.Wee Maureen, by

Robert Henri

From Ideas…

Dramatic, imaginative scenes like Lion Attacking a Horse were based on the ideas and creativity of the

artist, Stubbs.

… to Facts

People wanted to see things as they are, without sentimentalizing or idealizing the subject matter. Here,

we see Winslow Homer’s The Herring Net, a depiction of ordinary people doing ordinary work.

From work…

Millet’s The Fishermen

…to Play?

What is this young woman’s attitude or disposition? Why is

this painting considered part of

the Realist movement?Degas’ Absinthe Drinker

Realism or Romanticism?

Thomas Eakins The Gross Clinic (1875) is considered Thomas Eakins’s masterpiece. The painting was rejected for an exhibition in Philadelphia to commemorate the centennial of American Independence because it was considered too harshly realistic.

The Gross Clinic and Eakins

Thomas Eakins (1844-1916): American realist painter, one of the foremost of the 19th century.

The Gross Clinic combined sharp realism—a depiction of an operation in progress—with psychological acuity in the portrayal of the surgeon, Doctor Gross.

Realism or Romanticism?

Hudson River School Painter Bierdstadt

Albert Bierstadt was a German-born American artist who specialized in grandiose paintings of spectacular mountain scenery in the western United States. The 1868 painting shown here, Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

More on the Hudson River School

Many artists associated with the group lived and painted in the Catskill Mountains region of New York State, particularly along the Hudson River. Their work is characterized by meticulous and realistic attention to detail and a poetic feeling for nature characteristic of romanticism.

Other artists who painted elsewhere, such as Bierdstadt in the West, are considered members of the school because their landscapes display the same romantic love of nature, formal composition, and precise detail typical of the Hudson River School.

Hudson River School: the first group of landscape painters to emerge in the United States after independence from Great Britain. The Hudson River School flourished between 1820 and 1880.

Realism or Romanticism?

Snow in New York by Robert Henri

Ash Can School (1891-1918): A group of urban realist painters in America creating work around the early part of 20th century.

Founded by the artist and teacher Robert Henri

Group began in Philadelphia around 1891

The Ash Can school artists sought to paint "real life" and urban reality. These artists believed what was real and true in life was what was beautiful and what constituted "art." They painted gritty urban scenes and the poor and disenfranchised in America.

Realism or Romanticism?

Nighthawks

"

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

Hopper’s paintings combined realism with isolation, vastness, melancholy.

Edward Hopper

Hopper recorded the starkness and vastness of America. Sometimes he expressed aspects of this in traditional guise, as, for example, in his

pictures of lighthouses and harsh New England landscapes; sometimes New York was his context, with eloquent cityscapes, often showing

deserted streets at night.

Corn Hill (Truro, Cape Cod)

More Edward Hopper

He painted hotels, motels, trains and highways, and also liked to paint the public and semi-

public places where people gathered: restaurants, theatres, cinemas and offices. But even in these paintings he stressed the theme of loneliness—his theatres are often semideserted, with a few patrons waiting for the curtain to go up or the performers isolated in the fierce light

of the stage.

http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Hopper.htm

Sunday

Works Cited Adventures in American Literature http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563273/Albert_Bierstadt.html http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761556406/Hudson_River_School.html http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761552472/realism_(art_and_literature).html http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761573747/Thomas_Eakins.html http://encarta.msn.com/media_461553545_761573747_-1_1/The_Gross_Clinic.html http://20thcenturyart.suite101.com/article.cfm/robert_henri

http://www.artmovements.co.uk/ashcanschool.htm http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/3aa/3aa432.htm http://www.talkingproud.us/Culture091403.html http://www.alumni.utah.edu/continuum/spring03/landscape.htm http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper.html http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Hopper.htm