The Annotated Mona Lisa: Pages 83 - 85

Question 1

Realism

Answer 1

• before realism, artists in the nineteenth century modified their subjects by idealizing or sensationalizing them
• “new” realism insisted on precise imitation of visual perceptions without alteration

Question 2

Courbet

Answer 2

• Gustave Courbet (1819-77)
• father of the realist movement
• his credo was “everything that does not appear on the retina is outside the domain of painting”

Question 3

The Barbizon School: Realistic French Countrysides

Answer 3

• influenced by Constable
• began in the 1830s
• most famous names associated with this school were Millet and Corot

Question 4

Corot: Misty Trees

Answer 4

• Jean-Baptist-Camille Corot (1796-1875)
• brought a natural, objective style to landscape painting, capturing the quality of particular place at a particular moment

Question 5

American Realism

Answer 5

• Winslow Homer (1836-1910)
• self-taught artist
• based work on direct observation of nature
• in the 1880s he retreated to Maine were he painted the sea
• he was the first to display his watercolors as finished works and thereby installed the form as a major medium