Realism

Reaction against Romanticism & Neoclassicism

Realism refers to a style of art during the 19th century most dominantly among French painters, in which they strived to depict their subject as realistically as possible.

The goal of Realism was truth and accuracy; they denounced emotionalism, romanticized subjects, and

anything shown exaggerated. The subject matter of their painting was often of everyday characters, situations, and objects. They were the first to show the everyday

class of society, though most of those paintings were not well received at the time. They were against the idealization of objects that was relevant in the Neoclassicism movement and Romanticism.

http://www.artfortune.com/realism/

Jean Desire Gustave Courbet was a French painter who instrumental in leading the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting.

The Meeting The Bathers

Jean-Francois Millet: preoccupied with scenes of rural life. Did have a touch of

Romantic sentimentality…

The Gleaners

The Angelus

Edoudard Manet was a late Realist painter who adapted the style of photography and later went on to influence Impressionism.

Luncheon on the GrassExecution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico

1st Photo in 1825 by a French inventor Joseph Niepce

Window in which the 1st photo was

taken

Music

• Liszt: invented the symphonic poem (based upon literary or pictorial ideas• Wagner: Early was Romantic:

later was influenced by realism: transformed opera into “music drama”

Realism Literature• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert– Description of small-town life in France– Madame Bovary trapped in marriage to a drab

provincial doctor– She sought adulterous affairs– Unfulfilled she commits suicide

• Vanity Fair by William Thackeray – Flouted Romantic ideals & conventions– Town called “Vanity” that held a perpetual “Fair”– Story realistic, not Romantic

• Charles Dickens–Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, David

Copperfield, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, etc.–Novels about Britain’s early industrial

age–Focused on lower & middle classes–Descriptions of life were vividly realistic

New Age of Science

• 19th Century saw the bringing together of the practical application of technological advancement through the Industrial revolution and the rational scientific approach of earlier elites from the Age of Scientific Revolution.

• Result of this synthesis was a rash of discoveries and advancements that converted into technology that affected everyone

Overview of Science Discoveries

• Laws of Thermodynamics (pg 688)• Biology: Louis Pasteur formulated germ theory

(pg 688)• Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic

induction which laid the foundation for use of electricity (pg 688)

• Charles Darwin & his theory of organic evolution: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1859 (pg 689)

Heroic Model of Science

• Widespread acceptance of scientific method– People believed it was only path to true objectivity– This undermined faith and religion

• Contributed to increasing secularization• Growth of MATERIALISM (pg 689)– Belief that everything mental, spiritual, or ideal was

a result of physical forces– Truth is in material existence and not, as Romantics

said, revelations gained through emotion or intuition

Revolution in Health Care• Germ theory - Pasteur (pg 690)– Led to Pasteurization (process of destroying organisms

causing spoilage)– Led to vaccines (rabies, diphtheria, typhoid fever,

cholera, and plague)• New surgical practices (pg 690)– Joseph Lister & antiseptic principle

• New Public Health measures – Public health movement: governments involving

themselves• New Medical schools (education)