REALISM, IMPRESSIONISM, SYMBOLISM
-A reaction to romanticism
Copernican Revolutions
Challenges to origins of:
1) Humanity (Creationism vs. Charles Darwin)
2) Morality (God vs. Nietzsche)
3) Human motivation (Free will vs. Freud, "Biologist of the Mind")
A Need for Revisions
Hope in Progress: Condorcet, Adam Smith
Progress Fails Us: Karl Marx
Painterly Realism: the world we have is the world we portray:
Gustave Courbet
-Burial at Ornans
"Show me an angel and I’ll paint one"
Thomas Eakins
-The Gross Clinic
American portrayal of surgery; contrast with macabre
Eduard Manet
-Olympia 1863
Glorification of the base (a prostitute courtesan)?
-Portrait of Emile Zola
Zola was writer of realistic sociology novels
Pictures within picture
Edgar Degas
-Cotton Exchange at New Orleans
Portraits within a picture
A realistic, but not unfairly critical, view of trade
Reaction to Realism
The Pre-Raphaelites (a group of English painters) shun: 1) realism, 2) materialism, 3) industrial ugliness
John Everett Millais
-Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter’s Shop)
Symbolism of sheep, nail cut, John the Baptist with water, comfort from Mary
Literary Realism
Charles Dickens Hard Times: literary exposition of life as a "hand"
-Description of Coketown
Sculptural Realism
Auguste Rodin
-Age of Bronze
Too real? A problem with excellence: Those best able to appreciate it may be too envious to acknowledge it.
-Gates of Hell
"The Thinker"
-Process of Forming over the Form
-Creation is evolving, not static (Darwin)
Architectural Realism
New methods and materials (e.g., cast iron) open up new possibilities
Henri Labrouste
-Library of Ste. Genevieve University of Paris
-Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
Joseph Paxton
-Crystal Palace, London
Impressionism
What is an impression?
-sensation
-incomplete
-instantaneous perception
-is it revisable?
Scientific discoveries –optics
-Helmholtz: sensation of color has more to do with retina (subject) than objects
Impressionists used speculations in their work. How? (Fleming, pp. 560-1)
Japanese Influence
-a retreat from linear perspective to multi-directional perspective
-use of colors for their own sake
-nature rather than humanity
La Japonaise
Claude Monet
-St. Lazare Train Station, the Normandy Train
1877a, 1877b from website
-Japanese Bridge at Giverny
Note: Japanese influence (Fleming, p. 564)
Renoir
-Le Moulin de la Galette
Edouard Manet
-Rue Mosnier, Paris, Decorated with Flags on June 30, 1878
-Bar at the Folies-Bergere
Artistic License in reflection: the importance of intent (Rembrandt vs. Manet)
George Seurat
-Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Mary Cassatt
-Boating Party
Summary of Impressionism (Fleming, p. 568-9)
video notes:
The subjects of impressionism:
-Escapism, denial or portrayal of real world?
Postimpressionism
Vincent van Gogh
-Starry Night
Paul Gauguin
-Day of the God (Mahana no Atua)
Paul Cezanne
Ideas
The alliance of arts and science
Continuous Flux
Bergson’s Theory of Time
Bergson and the Arts