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1
From Romanticism to Naturalism:Political, Social, and Cultural Realism
Week 6 – Lecture 1
19 February 2008
wednesday quiz formats
I. From Romanticism to Realism
A) Social Causes: Invention of Working ClassA new fascination with (lower-class) “reality”
B) Socio-Political Causes: Revolutions of 1830 and 1848
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830)
Victor Hugo
2
Honoré Daumier, Massacre on the rue Transnonain, 15 April 1834
1848 Socialists vs. Liberals
Ernest Meissonier, Barricade in the Rue De La Mortellerie,
June 1848 (Memory of Civil War) [1849]
Messonier, The Barricade [detail]
3
Romanticism
Realism Courbet, The Stonebreakers 1849: Laborers as heroic subject-matterNB: massive canvases usually reserved for gods, monarchs, heros, classical subjects
“Above all, the art of painting can only consist of the representation of objects which are visible and tangible for the artist . . . .
“…I maintain, in addition, that painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things…It is a completely physical language, the words of which consist of all visible objects; an object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.”
--- Gustave Courbet, Letter to Courrier du dimanche (25 December 1861)
4
“an object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.”
KEY: Realism is a political weapon – it delegitimates neo-classicism, romanticism, religious art as being “UN-real” --- i.e., “falsifying” or “distorting” reality
… but before you buy Courbet’s rhetoric about “reality” too quickly….
Piet Mondrian,
Composition II (1929)
“an object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.”
--Courbet (1861)
Byzantine (8th c.) : flat/hieratic Mondrian (20th c.) flat/abstract
History does not move in a straight line…
For “realist” novel in English, think of Charles Dickens: e.g., Hard Times, Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, etc.
Realist novel in France begins with Balzac… ultimate expression is Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
5
1857 – Flaubert: immorality trial
1859 II: Post-1859: From Realism to Naturalism
Marx + Darwin: The world is a harsh world of competition and survival of the fittest
{“Home” = safe warm refuge}
NB: We are far from Newton!!!
Charles Darwin:
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of FavouredRaces in the Struggle for Life [1859]
HEREDITY
Charles Darwin:
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of FavouredRaces in the Struggle for Life [1859]
Elected November 1860
“Hardware” [population] changed;“Software” [mentalities] stayed same
Result:Cholera epidemics
• Cholera: – spread through
contaminated water
• 1830s: beginning of modern epidemics:– France: 100K;– Britain: 50K; – Russia: 238K
• 1854: 150K in France alone
6
Cholera: thought to be spread through the air [“miasma”]
Baron von Haussmann’s aqueducts bring fresh water into Paris (1850s)NB: SOFTWARE CATCHES UP WITH HARDWARE INVENTS NEW H.W.!!!
“Cholera”complains to Baron von Haussmann that the Water / Sewer system has put him out of work
Paris Sewer System Pleasure Cruises!Waste management / clean water longer life expectancies
More sewer pleasure cruise… notice all fresh water!
7
1910 →Boston, 1830
← “Beacon St.” [dam]
↓ “Back Bay”
Beacon Hill
1858-1864
Using steam shovels, 35-car trains were loaded in ten-minute intervals for trips from granite quarries in suburban Needham to the Back Bay.
Three trains ran on the tracks, each making 25 trips a day.
Between 1858 and 1864, the state filled 53 acres of the Back Bayusing this train-and-steam-shovel system.
1630
1890
http://www.iboston.org/rg/backbayImap_1890.htm
Naturalism as late form of realism
= a new obsession
with HEREDITY
and with deterministic
“Nature”
Biology and passing on
“healthy blood”
Cf. Bourgeois family /
“home” / “procreation”
8
Literary Naturalism: Nature/Fate/Society crush human beingsAnti-Romantic: Nothing noble about being crushed
Emile Zola Edith Wharton
Diorama of Emile Zola’s novel Germinal at Musée Grevin
FATE!!!
DESTINY!!!
INEVITABILITY!!!
NECESSITY!!!
INEXORABILITY!!!
Es muß sein!!!
“FATALISM + PROGRESS” = “The 19TH-C. Heavenly Twins”…
--- Jacques Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner
Romanticism
Naturalism
Technological: photography / press
The mystery of the girl’s body foundon the rue du Vert-Bois
[1886]
9
Naturalist painting: tries to imitate precision of detail /
verisimilitude of photography
Christian Krohg,The Sick Girl [1880-81]
Late 19th-c. “Realism” or “naturalism”
III. “End of the Soul”:
Psychology
Anthropology
Sociology
III. “End of the Soul”:
Psychology
Anthropology
SociologyPHRENOLOGY [Craniology = head]:
Criminality / Race / Degeneration written on the body
10
OBSERVABLE:
measurement / quantification
Eyes
Long hands
Ears…
• “...he mumbled, and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said Yes, when he produced a thing like callipersand got the dimensions back and front and every way…
• “I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there [i.e., into the heart of darkness]…” And when they come back? “Oh, I never see them… the changes take place inside, you know.”
• “‘Ever any madness in your family?’ he asked…”
Note fascination in Spectacular Realities with colonial “primitives”
Anthropo - Sociology
11
Note intersections of criminality / madness / race
“Hysteria” diagnosis <--- uterus: women [mostly] acting “ab-normal”
Finding bodily causes for symptoms of depression e.g.,
uncontrollable crying, rage, religious fervor, shopping, kleptomania
Lemonnier, The Hysteric (1885)
“Feminization of Religion”Jean-Martin Charcot [and hypnotized patient]
at the Salpêtrière neurological clinic, Paris
Charcot’s “crucified” position: from his “iconography of the hysteric” Charcot’s “supplication” position
12
Augustine [Charcot’s model] demonstrates “crucified” position
Augustine demonstrates “supplication” position
Iconography of the hysteric:Attitude de supplication
Immaculate Conception
8 December 1854
Anti-naturalist dogma
[Darwin: 1859]
Iconography of the hysteric:Attitude de crucifiement