Chapter 2 Flashcards
FRENCH REALISM: PEASANTS AND THE URBAN POOR IN EUROPEAN ART
- BY THE MID-19TH CENTURY, INDIVIDUALISM AND NATURALISM IN ART HAD REPLACED HISTORY PAINTING IN GERMANY, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND
- IN FRANCE, BECAUSE OF A HISTORY OF REVOLUTION AND INSTABILITY IN THE POLITICAL SITUATION, THERE WAS MORE OF AN IDEA OF SOCIAL ACTIVISM
- THIS TRANSLATED INTO REALIST ART
FRENCH REALISM: PEASANTS AND THE URBAN POOR IN EUROPEAN ART 2
THE POST-ROMANTIC GENERATION OF FRENCH ARTISTS CONSISTED OF HONORÉ DAUMIER, JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET, AND GUSTAVE COURBET
- REALISTS PLACED A POSITIVE VALUE ON THE DEPICTION OF THE LOW, THE HUMBLE, AND THE COMMONPLACE – THE SOCIALLY DISPOSSESSED OR MARGINAL IN SOCIETY
- GUSTAVE COURBET SAID THAT THE GOAL OF THE REALIST WAS TO TRANSLATE THE CUSTOMS, THE IDEAS, THE APPEARANCE OF HIS OWN EPOCH INTO ART
- TRUTH WAS IMPORTANT TO THE REALISTS
Part 3
- THE BARBIZON SCHOOL OF PAINTING TAKES ITS NAME FROM THE VILLAGE OF BARBIZON, NEAR PARIS
- MANY ARTISTS GATHERED THERE INCLUDING MILLET AND CHARLES-FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY
- THE FORMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THEIR ART INCLUDE ITS TONAL QUALITIES, COLOUR, LOOSE BRUSHWORK, AND SOFTNESS OF FORM
- IT IS A PRECURSOR OF FRENCH IMPRESSIONISM
FRANÇOIS MILLET, THE GLEANERS, 1857 (FRENCH REALISM)
JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET, THE SOWER, 1850 (FRENCH REALISM; BARBIZON SCHOOL)
THÉODORE ROUSSEAU, UNDER THE BIRCHES, 1842
- Barbizon landscape
- very interested in nature
- trees bathed in light
- soft/loose painting style, tonal quality
CHARLES-FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY, LANDSCAPE WITH A POND, 1861
THE CANADIAN REALISTS AND THE BARBIZON TRADITION
William Brymner
Horatio Walker
Homer Watson
George Reid
William Blair Bruce
WILLIAM BRYMNER,A WREATH OF FLOWERS (1884)
- A wreath of flower exhibited in London
- he used this work as a diploma piece with the Royal Canadian Academy
- asymmetrical composition (Balance)
- studied/depicted children
- landscape is painted much more loosely children are painted in realist tradition the landscape looks like impressionism
William Brymner
- artist from Montreal
- went to Paris in 1878 - Big exposition in Paris
- Brymner went as an assistant & stayed
- 1878 entered Academie Julian
- sent paintings canvas to Canada to be sold & exhibited
- became influential teacher at Art Association of Montreal
WILLIAM BRYMNER, EARLY MOONRISE IN SEPTEMBER, 1899 (FIGURE 2.2)
- loose tonal soft landscape
- lost realist tendencies
GEORGE REID, CALL TO DINNER, (1888-9)
- farmwife calling son/husband for dinner
- color scheme concentrated on green
- red important because it draws us in the composition
George Reid
- Ontario farm boy - grew up in rural ontario
specialized in genre paintins (life, what you see around you)
another artists who studied in France
figural paintings - interested in atmosphere & light (Parison influence)
before France trained at the Notions studio
Reid 2
- set up studio in Toronto & produced a # of large genre paintings - inspired by his own experiences
- always painted Canadian scenes (even in France)
- hired French postman to pose as a Canadian farmers
- 1912 principal of OCAd today
GEORGE REID, MORTGAGING THE HOMESTEAD (1890)
- most of his work are along realist lines (this painting)
- scene that might’ve been show in Ontario farms during recession
HORATIO WALKER, THE PIG’S REST (1880S)
Horatio Walker
- Born in Ontario
- working class family
- age 12 moved to Quebec
- goes to Nottingham to work and meets John Fraser
- doesn’t go to Barbizon
- gets his exposure to Barbizon art from cities in the US
Walker 2
- 6 months walking tour sketching walks from Montreal to Quebec city along st Lawrence
- wanted to immerse himself in the rural way of life
- Impressionism is a French influence on Canadian art
- became fascinated by pigs (slept in barns)
- successful as an artist in 1880
Walker 3
- travels to Europe - studies the techniques of the Barbizon artist
- many of his paintings purchased by American galleries
- Canada - main inspiration came from rural society - Quebecers
- Walker did not travel in Europe but was influenced by French work
- summers in Quebec winters in NYC
Walker 4
- Canada’s best known and most financially sucessful promoter of Barbizon and Hague School aesthetics.
- accomplished oil painter and watercolourist
- during last two decades of the 19th century moved from a kinship with Dutch art to a more sustained interest in barbizon painting.
Walker 5
- After Walker began consistently to document human life and labour on Île de Orléans.
- principal market for Walker’s work was United States
- in the us referred to as “The American Millet”