History of Art
'Gods, heroes and patriots did not interest the realist painters.' Compare and contrast works which represented realist ideas.The term realism was used with various meanings in the criticism of art but here we concentrate on its broadest sense; naturalism. Artists whose paintings were of the naturalist kind tried to depict things accurately and objectively in their paintings, they were against idealised beauty and mostly portrayed working class people in their typical everyday situation. Realism was a movement that occurred in the nineteenth century and mostly around French painters. These (mostly French) artists went against historical, mythological and religious subject for paintings and were in favour of un-idealised scenes of the modern life. Courbet, who became the leader of the realist movement, said 'painting is essentially a concrete art and must be applied to real and existing things'. Courbet had not cast off all romantic ideas along with the trappings of romanticism. But, his paintings show better than his writings how his forceful personality and the circumstances of his life led him to create an art far removed from that of Delecroix, not to mention Delaroche. He was the son of a fairly we
The paintings are in the main documentation of contemporary life and manners with satirical overtones, although he also did a number featuring Don Quixoti as a larger than life hero. One of the most popular was by Van Gogh. As a sculpture he specialised in caricature heads and figures and these two are in a very spontaneous style, in particular he created the memorable figure 'Ratapoil' - meaning skinned rat, who embodied the sinister agents of the government of Louis-Philippe. Millet portrays them with the thick heavy garments and clothing/headgear to reflect the fact that these women spent a great deal of their time outdoors exposed to the elements. Daumier was responsible for over 4,000 lithographs during his lifetime but he was never happy with the results of his work. Daumier was known chiefly as a political and social saturist , but since his death he has become widely known as an important realist painter. Daumier is another important French artist who created sculptures, paintings and caricatures during the realism movement. Daumier acutely distorts / twists the upper part of her body. This unusual subject matter (peasants) was considered scandalous. Millet was another important realist artist who was very influencial because he was used as example of reflecting socialist ideas through his work. But if Millet 'the peasant painter' is largely a myth he was not politically disingenuous. The peasant he depicted belonged to the class which still accounted for more than half the French population yet had benefited least from the growing mid century prosperity. There is a great deal of movement and dynamism in this large and mighty figure as the woman struggles with tremendous weight; she is carrying a pile of laundry that seems to be too heavy for her. They are each dressed in their best clothes (mainly black because of the funeral; Courbets masterly use of a limited range of colours).
Common topics in this essay:
Rosseau Millet,
Van Gogh,
History Art,
Don Quixoti,
Daumier French,
St Ornans',
Jean-Francois Millet,
Courbet Painting,
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
Millet Daumier,
realism movement,
subject matter,
millet 'the,
idealised beauty,
thou eat,
painting millet,
nineteenth century,
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Acceptance Essays
