Realism

Jean Francois – Millet, The Gleaners, 1857

The Realist movement, or the Realist School, rejected formulaic Neoclassical style and the artificial idealized approach of Romanticism. The artists instead chose to depict scenes of daily life. Many of the artists painted scenes evoking a social or moral message. The artists no longer used a subject matter of idealized historical figures, but rather, often used images of commoners and peasants.

One artist closely associated with the Realist School was Jean-François Millet (1814 – 1875). Millet’s Gleaners displays a political message as well as displaying the style of the Realist School. Here, he depicts three gleaners, and instead of depicting Neoclassical idealized characters, he paints characters that are rather the opposite. The viewer is barley able to see the faces of the three women. Instead we get a glimpse of sun tanned weather beaten skin. The gleaners would come and pick the scraps off the fields after the main crop was finished. The gleaners were the least fortunate peasants.

Gustav Courbet attempts to show the same political message in Stone Breakers. The subject matter is treated with the seriousness of a history painting, although

Gustave Courbet, Stone Breakers, 1849

the subject matter is not typical of the style. Courbet portrays two men hard at work in the country. The artist brings across the cyclical nature of the work as the same job is passed down from generation to generation. The young boy will never escape the class system and will naturally follow in his father’s footsteps.

Both of these works were highly criticized by The Academy, because of the subject matter. The artists had broken with the romantic traditions of painting history.