Post #2 Realism and the Early Avant-Garde

The early stages of Avant-Garde art, artists were interested in challenging and defying the established values of the Academy of Art. There was also a strong desire to make a commentary or influence on politics and humanity. One of the more successful ways to accomplish both of these goals gave rise to Realist painting. Realism is a movement where the artist tries to capture and portray the world as it is seen around him. The invention and growing use of photography played a large part in the rise and interest in this style of painting. Some techniques, inherent to taking a photo, were even picked up and incorporated by artists. Just as a camera lens can only  capture so much in its view, artists began to crop the edges off of objects on the boarders of their paintings.

As mentioned earlier, Realist painting was an effective tool for both challenging the establishment and social commentary, and one artist in particular was very good at using this tool to stir the pot. Gustave Courbet was a French realist painter who gained much notoriety for how and what he chose to paint. Two specific examples of this type of painting are first, The Stone Breakers, and second A Burial at Ornans. Looking at Stone Breakers we can see that two males are hard at work. They are dressed in modern clothing and the figures are scaled large, taking up much of the canvas. They are clearly what Courbet wants the viewer to focus on. This painting is of the Realist movement because it shows modern people as you would see them at the time of its creation. This is contradictory to what the Academy would prefer, but also is very unsettling to the bourgeoisie viewers who might view it as well. Both of these groups find it offensive to dedicate a painting to the much lower class stone breakers. To compound it, Courbet chooses a very large canvas to paint this piece on, an 5ft X 8ft. This size of painting was traditionally reserved for Academy style history paintings but it also makes the figures in the piece very large as well. They are unavoidable and force the viewer to see them as they are. Another issue many people had with this piece is that the figures are either turned away or have their face covered. There is no eye contact with the viewer and no other implied narrative other than these two men at work.

The second piece, A Burial at Ornans, is an interesting painting all its own. Stone Breakers was large but this painting is an enormous 10ft X 21ft and shows a group of people gathered at a funeral procession. This is not to be any specific funeral but is based on the burial of Courbet's grandfather. This painting does not seem to carry the photographic Realist qualities that Courbet shows in Stone Breakers because he does take some artistic liberties and does some blending of time periods. The figures to the right of the grave are said to be representatives of the 1789 French revolution and that Courbet was attempting to make a connection between that revolution and the more recent socialist revolution of 1848. This does however, does put a charge in his Avant-Garde political statement, since both revolutions tried to advance democracy in France. The painting itself is very somber and also awkward in ways. By doing a scan of faces in this funeral group you can see a wide range of emotions. Some appear sad and grieving, like the men on the right of the grave. Others seem bored or uninterested, like the clergy to the left. While others still, look away or appear to caught up in thought. The awkward tension create by the whole scene is very real, and is something one might experience at a real funeral, everyone experiencing and feeling something different. He was criticized for all of these facial expressions and the misplace dog, distracting from the real activity of the scene, a funeral. Courbet was also heavily criticized for the placement of the grave itself in this painting. He placed the large hole right in the center of his piece with all the figures huddled around it, as well as disrespecting the traditional use of such a large canvas to depict the burial of a heroic figure.