Realism in Art: A Summary and Introduction to the Study of the Works of Jean-François Millet, Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet and Honorè Daumier.
Realism is an artistic movement that was born in the nineteenth century on the foundations laid by a group of French artists. The objective of realist artists is to represent reality by investigating it in its normality , up to the most banal and dramatic aspects.
Their favorite theme is landscape, but over time their artistic concentration broadens to all areas of life.
The neoclassical rule was abandoned, realist painters painted work scenes and images of everyday life, in contrast with the academic line that considered these subjects undignified. For this reason, the works of realist painters did not have great success in exhibitions and, often, were rejected outright.
REALISM: PAINTERS
In realist works nothing is embellished, neither objects nor people. The characters are not loaded in their facial expressions nor in their attitudes, the color is dense, the contrasts of light and shadow are decisive. According to the greatest exponent of Realism , Gustave Courbet , the expressive force lies in the painting and not in the subject represented. Among realist painters we remember Jean François Millet, Camille Corot and Honorè Daumier.
Jean-François Millet, The Angelus
ean-François Millet, The Angelus, 1857-59, oil on canvas, 55×66 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris . In addition to urban subjects and the proletariat, one of the themes dearest to realist painters was work in the fields. In this work Millet presents us with two humble peasants who interrupt their work to recite the Angelus . In the past, in fact, the church bells (one can be seen in the background) rang three times a day, at six in the morning, at noon and at six in the evening, to have a prayer recited, the Angelus, in memory of the mystery of the Incarnation.
