Realism and Naturalism (in 19th c. Art & Literature)

7/22/2019 Realism and Naturalism (in 19th c. Art & Literature)

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Realism & Naturalism

in Literature & Visual ArtSam Hylwa



The Development ofRealism & Naturalism in the Arts

• Realism & Naturalism were allied artisticmovements that developed in Europe (mainly inFrance) during the mid 19th century.

• They began as a rejection of the Romanticmovement, with its idealization of Nature and itsemphasis on inner emotional and spiritual life.

• The goal was, rather, to give an objectiveportrayal of reality and to show human life in itsordinary, social milieu.



Features of Realist and Naturalist Art

• Takes as its subject the everyday lives of peoplefrom all strata of society.• In both painting and literature, an emphasis of

physical details; in literature, a focus on socialrealities and detached depictions of humanthought and action.

• Willfully addresses sordid and unpleasant aspects

of human life, especially scenarios of socialinjustice, and the difficulties occasioned by theindustrialization of society.



Gustave Courbet

A Burial at Ornans (1849-1850)



Gustave Courbet

The Painter’s Studio (1855)



Jean-François Millet

The Gleaners (1857)



Jules Breton

The End of the Working Day (1886-1887)



Honoré de Balzac(1799-1850)

Father of French literary

realism, best-remembered for

his multi-volume cycle of

novels La Comédie Humaine



La Comédie Humaine

• Roman-fleuve of almost 100 interlinked novels depicting various facets of French society between 1815 and 1848.

• Over 2,000 named characters, many of them recurring.

• Major themes include the role of money in shapingsociety, sources of power (“At the origin of every fortunelies a crime”), ambition and social mobility, therelationships of fathers, sons, mothers and daughters, and

the roles of men and women in society.Said Engels: “I have learned more [from Balzac] than fromall the professional historians, economists, and statisticiansput together.” [Marx & Engels, Literature and Art: Selections from their Writings ]



Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

An important and

influential example of

psychological realism, itdepicts the rich inner life

of its title character in a

style that eschews the

narrator’s own judgment.



Émile Zola & Naturalism

Zola was the self-proclaimed leader of theNaturalist movement, anoffshoot of realism thataimed to portray the waysin which social conditions,

environment and heredityshaped human character.



Zola’s Les Rougon-Macquart • Cycle of twenty novels following the life a family living in

France during the Second Empire (1852-1870).• The Rougons: “legitimate” branch of the family, made up of

well-educated, upper-class individuals ( Le Docteur Pascal,

L’Argent, La Fortune des Rougons ).

• The Macquarts: “illegitimate” branch, farmers, soldiers,members of the working class ( L’Assomoir, La Terre, Nana ).

• Influenced by determinism and Darwinian evolutionary

theory. The characteristics of members of both branches ofthe family were shaped by heredity. While the Rougons aredriven towards power, money and excess, in the lower classenvironment of the Macquarts these tendencies manifest as

alcoholism, violence, and prostitution.



From the preface toLa Fortune des Rougons :

“Physiologically the Rougon-Macquarts represent the

slow succession of accidents pertaining to the nerves or

the blood, which befall a race after the first organiclesion, and, according to environment, determine in each

individual member of the race those feelings, desires and

passions—briefly, all the natural and instinctivemanifestations peculiar to humanity--whose outcome

assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice.”



French Realism & Naturalism’s Influence

In painting there were similar movements in many other European

countries. In Russia, the Wanderers group led by Ilya Repin gainedparticular notoriety. Seen below is his Barge Haulers on the Volga (1873)



French Realism and Naturalism’s Influence

Some of the most significant works of the 19th centuryfollowed from the realist/naturalist tradition, including:• George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871)• Ivan Turgenev, Fathers & Sons (1862)• Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace (1869), Anna Karenina (1877)• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime & Punishment (1866), The Idiot

(1869), The Brothers Karamazov (1880)•

Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881)• Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Maggie

(1893)• Later realist authors included Theodor Fontane, Machado de

Assis, Guy de Maupassant and Anton Chekhov



Allied Movements and Offshoots

• French Impressionism, Post-impressionism.• American Social Realism, both in painting (George

Bellows, American Gothic ) and in literature (John

Steinbeck, Upton Sinclair)• Socialist Realism (official Soviet art form)

• Naturalist Theatre (August Strindberg, KonstantinStanislavski, Anton Chekhov)

• In 20th century cinema, French poetic realism (MarcelCarnet, Jean Renoir) and Italian neorealism (RobertoRossellini, Federico Fellini).



List of paintings featured

1. Black Creek, Gustave Courbet

2. After Dinner at Ornan’s, Gustave Courbet

3. Pastora , Jean-François Millet

9. Jokers , Illarion Pryanishnikov

12. October 17, 1905 , Ilya Repin

15. Outskirts of Paris , Jean-François Raffaëlli16. Seaside, Gustave Courbet



Further Reading

• Roland Stromberg, Realism, Naturalism and

Symbolism; Modes of Thought and Expression in Europe,

1848-1918. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.

• Balzac’s Introduction to La Comédie Humaine .http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1968/1968-h/1968-h.htm#link2H_4_0012

• Émile Zola, The Naturalist Novel , Montreal: HarvestHouse, 1964.

Documents

Realism and Naturalism (in 19th c. Art & Literature)