The Development of the first
forms of Photography - Realism
Muybridge and Marey ,
Daguerre , Realism
Realism “The Beauty of
the everyday” 1850s - 1890s
With
the arrival of photography in the mid 1830s, the world of visual arts
would be altered significantly. The idea of photography itself was
not new, and some artists had even employed some form of it. The
concept of photography revolved around light passing through a small
aperture as it registers the image of its subjects upon any surface
which it may strike. The camera
obscura was
used by artists throughout the ages and specialized particularly by
Vermeer. Daguerreotypes soon became popular by the hundreds of
thousands. The first photo portrait was made by Samuel F.B. Morse,
inventor of the telegraph. The possibilities were enormous, but for
many artists, a point of concern. With the invention of photography,
the art of portraiture would become almost non-existent. The emphasis
on creating works that were "objectively real" became
stronger and the application of new technologies in art making became
a major trend.
By
1858, photography was an assured fact, and photographers were able to
prove at last how living beings really look in motion, to the great
discomfiture of artists in the classic tradition with their contrived
poses. In other words, photographs capture the essence of the action,
the movement as it is, and there is absolutely no doubt in the
veracity or accuracy of the photograph.
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
(18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) was a French artist and
physicist, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process
of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography.
Étienne-Jules Marey (5 March
1830 - 21 May 1904) was a French scientist, physiologist and
chronophotographer.His work was significant in the development of
cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinematography and
the science of labor photography. He is widely considered to be a
pioneer of photography and an influential pioneer of the history of
cinema.
Eadweard James Muybridge ( 9
April 1830 – 8 May 1904) was an English photographer important for
his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and in
motion-picture projection
Realism was a cultural movment that
emerged in France in the 1850s after the 1848 revolution.
Positioned against Romanticism , the
subjectivism and exaggerated emotionalism which was dominating French
literature and artwork in the late 18th and 19th
centuries
In its most specific sense, Realism was
an artistic movement that began in France in the 1850s, after the
1848 Revolution. These Realists positioned themselves against
Romanticism, a genre dominating French literature and artwork in the
late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Seeking to be undistorted by personal
bias, Realism believed in the ideology of objective reality and
revolted against the exaggerated emotionalism of the Romantic
movement. Truth and accuracy became the goals of many Realists. Many
paintings depicted people at work, underscoring the changes wrought
by the Industrial and Commercial Revolutions. The popularity of such
'realistic' works grew with the introduction of photography — a new
visual source that created a desire for people to produce
representations which look “objectively real.”More generally,
realist works of art are those that, in revealing a truth, may
emphasize the ugly or sordid, such as works of social realism,
regionalism, or Kitchen sink realism.
In general, realists render everyday
characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in a
"true-to-life" manner. Realists tend to discard theatrical
drama, lofty subjects and classical forms of art in favor of
commonplace themes. The term is applied to, or used as a name for,
various art movements or other groups of artists in art history. The
artists at this time "told it as it is" so to speak. They
drew what they had seen without any bias added. The artists simply
focused on what was happening in front of them.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (July 16,
1796– February 22, 1875) was a French landscape painter and
printmaker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon
school of France in the mid-nineteenth century.
In the 1860s, Corot became interested in
photography, taking photos himself and becoming acquainted with many
early photographers, which had the effect of suppressing his painting
palette even more in sympathy with the monochromic tones of
photographs. This had the result of making his paintings even less
dramatic but somewhat more poetic,
Corot's primary concern was not as much for
the figures in the painting as it is for the landscape.What must be
noted is that although Corot was a realist, his work has very little
in common with the somber tones of other Realist landscape painters.
Corot's soft, silvery light was far away from reality, yet his
landscapes were surely influenced by the reality of the photography
in the nearly monochromatic and soft-focus landscapes of his later
years.
The Gleaners , 1857 , 83.5 × 110 cm
(32.9 × 43.3 in) , oil on canvas
Jean-François Millet (October 4, 1814 –
January 20, 1875) was a French painter and one of the founders of the
Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his scenes of
peasant farmers.Millet was an important source of inspiration for
Vincent van Gogh , Claude Monet and Salvador Dali.
The painting depicts the centuries old
right of poor women and children to remove the bits of grain left in
the fields following the harvest. This theme is an eternal one,
linked to the stories of the Old Testeament. Millet sought to convey
the sense of repetition and fatigue in the peasants' daily lives.
Bathed in a soft light, the bending women
appear as a part of the rural surroundings , the horrizon line binds
the women closely to the soil, becoming apart of the field they are
working in.The hardness of the work is apparent and their struggle to
survive.
The dark dresses of the gleaners cut
robust, shadowy forms against the golden field and the abundant
stacks of grain along the horrizon.
convey the sense of repetition and fatigue
in the peasants' daily lives
The Stone Breakers , 1849, 165 × 257 cm , oil on canvas
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( 10 June
1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realist
movement in 19th-century French painting. Courbet occupies an
important place in 19th century French painting as an innovator and
as an artist willing to make bold social commentary in his work
"The art of painting should consist
only in the representation of objects which the artist can see and
touch. “
Courbet's Stone Breakers created plenty of
controversy and attracted criticism when it was exhibited at the
Salon of 1850. Depicting poor peasants from the artists native region
in a realistic setting where they are performing dehumanizing labor
of breaking stones into gravel for road repair . He conceals the
faces of the figures to give it a universal ideology.
The hard work the day-labourers had to do
in the sun is apparent . An auduous life of toil and aching bones
lies between the youth in the torn shirt and the old man in the
patched-up cloths.
Unfortunately this work was destroyed in
World war II.
"The End of the Working Day"
1886 84 × 120 cm (33.1 × 47.2 in) oil on canvas
Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton (1 May
1827 – 5 July 1906) was a 19th-century French Realist painter. His
paintings are heavily influenced by the French countryside and his
absorption of traditional methods of painting helped make Jules
Breton one of the primary transmitters of the beauty and idyllic
vision of rural existence.
Bretons renderings of pesant female
figures in landscapes, posed against the setting sun were extrememly
popular in his own time.Up to this point in art history, peasants had
often been portrayed as moronic or senseless.
However, Breton saw them as something
more: Actors who were performing their role on the stage of life. His
figures stride in almost angelic forms with a Michelangelesque
grandeu.
Bibliography
Internet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muybridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Daguerre
http://impressionist1877.tripod.com/realism.htm
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rlsm/hd_rlsm.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Breton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste-Camille_Corot
http://www.newworldencyclopedia/realism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge
http://www.aev.vic.edu.au/realism
Books
Anna .Krausse, The story of painting:
from the renaissance to the , 1995
Reader's digest family treasury of :
Great Painters and Paintings , 1965
Tony Godfrey , Painting today , 2009
DVD
and TV
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