Romanticism in Realism

Realism emerged in the mid-1800s partly in response to the extremes of Romanticism. Romantic painting by 1850 had become excessively opulent, somewhat dull, and there was so much painting of this type and also of classical painting, that there was desire amongst many people for there to be painting which realistically depicted the world in which they lived. Courbet began the Realist movement when he exhibited his own paintings after they were refused to be shown in 1855. Although people had painted in a realist style before that, this was the first time that the name Realism came into popular usage for a movement. I will discuss Realism in reaction to Romanticism in the art especially of Gustave Courbet and Jean Francois Millet, two of the leaders in the realist movement. Generally, many of Millet's paintings showed more aspects of romanticism than Courbet. Courbet painted the bare facts of everyday life, though he started in a more romantic way, and sometimes returned to a more romantic style of painting. With Courbet, I will focus on the four large pictures he painted between 1848 and 1850. There was still Romantic imagery in Realist painting, as there was not a strict line dividing both styles. As with many styles of art, there are many artists and paintings which can be regarded as different styles.

During the middle of the nineteenth century, many people regarded Romanticism as becoming too fictional and detached from real life. Romantic painting used lavish colours and imagery, along with exotic stories, which did not depict the reality of the world where people were living. Instead they showed people in luxurious clothing, without having any significant meaning behind the picture. While Romanticism was well liked in the earlier nineteenth century, by the 1840s the style had gone out of taste. Like many styles, there is a period where they become no longer fashionable. "Romanticism had become by 1845: either a matter of fancy dress, or a demand for a painting on the edge of vision." (Clark 1999: 40) There had been much debate between the Classicalist and Romantic painters in the argument between form versus colour, yet by 1850 both schools of painting were unappealing as the Classicalist painted according to strict rules, while the Romantics painted too ostentatiously. "By 1850...classical and romantic [painting], had begun to degenerate: the first into rigid pedantic formalism, the second into exotic flamboyance." (Mack 1951: 89) With Classical and Romantic schools becoming dull and uninspiring there was a desire for a new style of art. Although Realism as a school of painting was new, the Realists were not the first painters to depict contemporary life in a realistic manner. Many artists painted scenes showing current events for hundreds of years. "[Realism] had a long line of eminent forerunners." (Mack 1951: 90) However, this was the first time that so many artists painted in this manner in a cohesive movement.

The romantic notion that one should be of their own times, became appropriated by the Realists and came to be the main argument of the Realist movement. Artists in the Romantic movement believed that they must be il faut etre de son temps (one must be of one's own times). "il faut etre de son temps was essentially a Romantic rather than a Realist formation." (Nochlin 1971: 104-5) Realists believed that an artist should paint work based around events in their own time, but did not choose to depict the exotic and historical aspects of this world. For instance, the Romantic painter Delacroix painted contemporary events such as the Revolution of 1830 in his painting Liberty leading the People, in a romantic manner. He also painted contemporary images of the life of the people of North Africa, but focusing on the exotic and oriental aspects of the people. Realist painters painted contemporary life but focused more on a depiction where they showed the actual fact of human existence. A realist picture would include a simple image of people at work in the fields, rather than having any great noble purpose. A peasant working in the field would be a subject matter that would typify Realistic painting. If the Romantics were to handle the same subject they would have glorified and romanticised the event, rather than painting the factual reality of what is actually happening.

The Realists borrowed some aspects of Romantic painting, although they rejected others. Realism was tied to Romanticism, "while rejecting Romanticism's artistic conventions - especially its literary and escapist themes." (Rubin 1997: 163) Many works of Romanticism were based on works of literature, which the Realist painters largely ignored. Realism also did not alter the real world in the way that Romanticism did. "Realism while appropriating the romantic premise that art must be of its time, on the contrary refused to treat reality as escapable." (Rubin 1980: 48) Artists such as Gustave Courbet painted in a way which allowed artists to paint the world around them as they saw it, rather than having to give works some kind of higher purpose or meaning. "[Courbet] established the right of the artist to be contemporary and unrhetorical, to be free from the necessity of adding an uplifting sentiment or an imposed message to the representation of actuality." (Nochlin 1976: 227) Many of the ideas of the 1848 Revolution gave the Realists inspiration for their works. "the nature of realism itself, its dependence upon the ideas and ideals of the 1848 Revolution, and its paradigmatic rather than literal relation to reality." (Nochlin 1976: 225) Courbet coined the phrase "Realism" with his exhibition of rejected works to the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris. He took eleven of his rejected paintings and displayed them at what he called the "Pavilion of Realism".

Courbet's painting based around what he saw at the funeral of his grand uncle became the first masterpiece in the Realist style. In September 1848 he attended the funeral of his great uncle at Ornans and later painted the huge canvas, Burial at Ornans. He used people who had been to the funeral as models for the painting, which was another way that the style was new. Previously, models were used as actors, to portray the life of other people from other times, yet here Courbet was painting the very people who had been to the event. It gives a realistic look at the townspeople of Ornans, and the people Courbet knew, and they are shown in a realistic setting, giving a look into what it was like to live in Ornans. "Here now was Ornans's public face as it coincided and overlapped with Courbet's family and friends - the township as Courbet knew it personally, a place of community and contradiction." (Rubin 1997: 79) The painting caused a fuss with critics and the public. It is an enormous work, measuring 10 by 22 feet, and depicts a funeral in a town in the way in which painters might have painted a picture of a royal funeral. "The subject's ordinariness and the starkly antiheroic composition horrified contemporary critics." (Kleiner et al 2001: 892) It also shows a crowd of people standing around the funeral which have been painted in a line; merely a group of people who are in mourning. He has painted some of the figures at the front in a classical style with priests and churchmen in their cloaks on the left, while a little white dog on the lower right contrasts against the dark clothing of the townspeople behind it. It was unusual to take an ordinary event and give it as much importance and dignity as would be usual to depict royalty. By creating such interest in this way of painting an ordinary scene, the public grew much more interested in this new, Realist style of work. The lavish, decadent fantasy of romanticism lost popularity, people desiring something more real and closer to home. Courbet regarded this work as not just a funeral for his uncle, but in actual fact a funeral for Romanticism as a style. Once people saw the way that the real world could be gripping and interesting, Romanticism as a style was finished. As Courbet said, "the Burial at Ornans was in reality the burial of Romanticism." (Rubin 1997: 153) However, the style might have been over, yet there were still elements of Romanticism which continued into later Realist work.

Courbet's painting of a young man and an old man breaking stones was a work of Realism which still had a trace of Romanticism. In the Stonebreakers, he showed two workers who were breaking up stones, a job seen as very lowly work. He depicted the idea and the event without romanticising it, merely showing the workers engaged in their daily activity. "Their menial labour is neither romanticized nor idealized but is shown with directness and accuracy." (Kleiner 2001: 891) However, even so, the figures are still arranged in a balanced and artistic arrangement, with the figure on the right about to strike his hammer, and the figure on the left standing in a S shape which slightly resembles the contrapposto balance of Greek sculpture. So even in paintings depicted menial tasks, there is a little trace of the Romanticism of the previous movement. While obviously there is a message about the terrible nature of the work which forced people who were too old or too young to do, he is also showing this in a romantic manner. The painting does not completely set out to show a shocking image, or be bitterly realistic. Instead it is a little satirical in an uplifting way similar to the artwork of William Hogarth. Courbet shows a sympathy and interest in working class people while most Romantic paintings had focused on the wealthy in society. "Courbet shows sympathy for the workers and disgust for the upper class by painting these men with a dignity all their own." (mtholyoke.edu) Other traces of Romanticism can be seen in some of his other paintings.

Courbet's work showing a group of people coming back from a fair is a realistic work with some traces of romanticism. In his painting The Peasants of Flagey Returning from the Fair he shows some peasants on horseback moving along a country road. While realistic, the composition and lighting seems the sort of thing which would have been used to show a party of nobles or lords. By the basic composition it could be a Rococo fê te galante painting of rich folks riding in the countryside. The man in the centre with the top hat is silhouetted against a golden sky, while his horse raises one foot in an aloof manner, almost posing. The animals look proud and noble. He has not romanticised the image by changing the costumes or the scenery, as Delacroix may have done, but he has painted a realistic scene in a romantic way, almost a romantic mood, even though all the details of the picture are realistic. If he was not trying to do this he would have painted them realistically, where the animals and people would be arranged haphazardly, as they probably would have been in real life. In fact it is not that they were not painted realistically, but it would be better to say did not paint them how they would usually appear. But instead of doing this, he has painted them in a split second of romantic composition, the trace of romanticism in the way that ordinary people, in an ordinary setting, doing an ordinary event, can look for a second beautiful and splendid as they line up in a composition which is almost perfect. In Romanticism proper, historic or oriental scenes would be painted with lavish costumes, great events involving heroes and compositions which could not possibly be real, but were arranged for their romantic effect. Here, however, the events, people and setting is real, but it is almost for a second the artist is saying that they evoke a spectacular pose. A second later, the man on the right would have moved forward, blocking the view of the man on the horse. Also, the man with the top hat would have moved forward so that he is no longer silhouetted against the golden sky and was instead in front of the trees. The lovely composition would vanish in an instant, and the artist has captured a scene which says something of an ephemeral nature of beauty sometimes, an artistic arrangement of moving people and animals.
Courbet also shows Romanticism in his painting of friends listening to a violinist after a dinner in Ornans. In An After Dinner at Ornans, Courbet depicts a scene of people having dinner listening to a man playing a violin. Courbet's other large works painted at this time show the way he was using Realism in his work. At first glance this one is a painting of a very ordinary event, three men sitting on the left in various amounts of interest in the violin player on the right. The man on the far left seems more interested in his drink, the man in the centre right is more interested in his pipe and the man at the centre left is watching the violin player but looks a little bored or tired. Yet there is some Romanticism in the way that the ordinariness of a scene of everyday life can look idyllic and Romantic of its own. Some friends sitting around a table having dinner is Romantic enough.

A common theme of Realist painting was peasants working in the fields. With at least two thirds of the population of France living in rural areas in the nineteenth century, there was a desire for art to depict this lifestyle, rather than the life of a far away people, or of an event that happened long ago. "In general, the relation of the peasant to the soil provided Realist art with a positive and sympathetic, if not an idyllic, image of rural life." (Nochlin 1971: 115) Jean Francois Millet used images of peasants and poor countryside people in his paintings. Sometimes these were seen as revolutionary, for portraying people in this light, he seemed to be encouraging revolutionary activity by the poor. There had been revolutions in France in 1789, 1830 and 1848, and the government of the Second Empire was worried about the prospect of Revolution. One of the reasons Millet's pictures were refused to be shown in the 1850s was because the Salon was worried about the way he glorified the work of rural people. The French Government had been trouble with wood choppers and gleaners, and the government was trying to restrict some people such as these gleaners from working.

Millet painted a powerful image of several gleaners, taking what was left from a harvested field. This painting The Gleaners shows an image of three peasant women picking up what was left of the harvest, which was regarded as one of the lowest jobs in society. However, Millet heroically depicted the women in a way where they take up the focus of the picture. Previously, servants may have been depicted in paintings, but usually in the background, with a noble or king taking up the focus of the picture. The light shines off the front two women's shoulders as they carry out their work. Behind them, the field stretches into the distance bathed in golden light, with a wide, magnificent sky. The forms of the three figures themselves, almost silhouetted against the lighter field, show balance and harmony. By turning this picture of three women working in the field into an image which would usually have been reserved for the nobility, Millet is saying something about the way that any labour is noble and beautiful. "Millet's composition implies something beyond the fact of specific nineteenth-century peasants performing a routine task.. and conveys a comforting suggestion of the timeless quasi-religious validity and moral beauty of labour in general." (Nochlin 1971: 117) While the painting is realistic, he did not actually physically go to the fields to sketch the women working. He did not base the painting of the Gleaners on something which he saw, it was rather an "artful invention based upon his own works, as well as upon the sculptural cadences of older art." (Holt 1976: 84) Some other of Millet's realistic paintings show Romantic elements.

Millet painted country people such as shepherdesses, farmers and peasant workers. With Shepherdess with her flock, he paints a seemingly ordinary picture of a poor country girl with a flock of sheep. But the picture is not ordinary in the sense that he chose only to depict a realistic scene. He instead painted it with an eye to create a very artistic and beautiful image. In fact, this is an ordinary image which has been romanticised, in the way that the golden light shimmers off the clouds in the background, and is reflected off the backs of the sheep at the front. The sheep form neatly into a group that fits into the frame of the picture. The shepherdess stands in a position which is similar to the Golden proportion ratio on the horizontal plane. The mass of the sheep's bodies to the left balance with the girl looking off to the right, so it is a very balanced picture. Millet has used many devices such as these to romanticise a realistic picture. Similarly, in Man with a hoe and Woman with a rake, he takes a picture of a worker with a farming implement and puts them in a romantic pose. The man stands, balancing on the hoe, looking into the distance, obviously tired but still looking artistic. The woman stands too upright to be a realistic pose with the rake, but instead conveys a feeling of sadness, as she is slowly raking the ground.

Realistic painting did not fully remove Romantic aspects from its style of painting. In fact, it could be argued that Realistic painting sometimes looked upon events of everyday life in a Romantic way. For while they did not glorify with exotic colours and storylines, they were impressed by the idea that a person's work is noble and a fitting idea for a painting in and of itself. In that sense, a painting of a farmer in a field is quite Romantic, as is the notion of glorifying a person's work as being its own reward. Both Millet and Courbet used Romantic elements in their realistic paintings in the way that they showed an event in an uplifting way. These are of course only traces of Romanticism, for the Realist work is a completely different style, depicting farmers, workers, peasants and 'ordinary' country people. While being a reaction against Romanticism, Realist painting still had many Romantic impulses in its practice.



Bibliography

Clark, T.J. (1999) Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. Thames and Hudson Ltd., London
Fried, M. (1990) Courbet's Realism. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Holt, J. (1976) Jean-Francois Millet, Graphis Press Ltd., London.
Kleiner, F. et al (2001) Gardner's Art Through the Ages. Eleventh Edition. Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, Florida
Mack, G. (1951) Gustave Courbet. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut.
Nochlin, L. (1976) Gustave Courbet: A Study of Style and Society. Garland Publishing Inc., New York
Nochlin, L. (1971) Realism. Penguin, London.
Nochlin, L. (1996) Realism and Tradition in Art 1848-1900. Prentice- Hall inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Rubin, J. (1997) Courbet. Phaidon Press, London.
Rubin, J. (1980) Realism and Social Vision in Courbet & Proudhon. Princeton University Press, New Jersey.

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