School painters worked in a time of great upheaval.Twilight in the
Wilderness dates to the 1860s, when the Civil War was tearing apart
the country. Yet this painting does not display evidence of turbu-
lence or discord. Indeed, it does not include even a trace of human-
ity. By constructing such an idealistic and comforting view, Church
contributed to the national mythology of righteousness and divine
providence—a mythology that had become increasingly difficult to
maintain in the face of conflict.
Landscape painting was immensely popular in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries, in large part because it provided viewers with
breathtaking and sublime spectacles of nature. Artists also could al-
legorize nature, and it was rare for a landscape painting not to touch
on spiritual, moral, historical, or philosophical issues. Landscape
painting became the perfect vehicle for artists (and the viewing pub-
lic) to “naturalize” conditions, rendering debate about contentious
issues moot and eliminating any hint of conflict.
Realism
Realism was a movement that developed in France around midcentury
against the backdrop of an increasing emphasis on science. Advances in
industrial technology during the early 19th century reinforced the En-
lightenment’s foundation of rationalism. The connection between sci-
ence and progress seemed obvious to many, both in intellectual circles
and among the general public, and people increasingly embraced em-
piricism(the search for knowledge based on observation and direct ex-
perience). Indicative of the widespread faith in science was the influ-
ence ofpositivism,a Western philosophical model developed by the
French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Positivists promoted
science as the mind’s highest achievement and advocated a purely em-
pirical approach to nature and society. Comte believed that scientific
laws governed the environment and human activity and could be re-
vealed through careful recording and analysis of observable data. Like
the empiricists and positivists, Realist artists argued that only the things
of one’s own time—what people could see for themselves—were “real.”
Accordingly, Realists focused their attention on the experiences and
sights of everyday contemporary life and disapproved of historical and
fictional subjects on the grounds that they were neither real and visible
nor of the present.
France
GUSTAVE COURBETThe leading figure of the Realist move-
ment in 19th-century art was Gustave Courbet(1819–1877). In
fact, Courbet used the term Realism when exhibiting his works, even
though he shunned labels (see “Courbet on Realism,” page 799). The
Realists’ sincerity about scrutinizing their environment led them to
portray objects and images that in recent centuries artists had deemed
unworthy of depiction—the mundane and trivial, working-class la-
borers and peasants, and so forth. Moreover, the Realists depicted
these scenes on a scale and with an earnestness and seriousness previ-
ously reserved for grand history painting.
STONE BREAKERSCourbet presented a glimpse into the life of
rural menial laborers in The Stone Breakers (FIG. 30-27), capturing
on canvas in a straightforward manner two men—one about 70, the
other quite young—in the act of breaking stones, traditionally the lot
of the lowest in French society. By juxtaposing youth and age, Courbet
suggested that those born to poverty remain poor their entire lives.
The artist neither romanticized nor idealized the men’s work but de-
picted their thankless toil with directness and accuracy. Courbet’s
palette of dirty browns and grays conveys the dreary and dismal na-
ture of the task, while the angular positioning of the older stone
breaker’s limbs suggests a mechanical monotony.
This interest in the working poor as subject matter had special
meaning for the mid-19th-century French audience. In 1848 labor-
ers rebelled against the bourgeois leaders of the newly formed Sec-
ond Republic and against the rest of the nation, demanding better
working conditions and a redistribution of property. The army
quelled the revolution in three days, but not without long-lasting
trauma and significant loss of life. That uprising thus raised the issue
of labor as a national concern and placed workers center stage, both
literally and symbolically. Courbet’s depiction of stone breakers in
1849 was very timely and populist.
BURIAL AT ORNANSAlso representative of Courbet’s work is
Burial at Ornans (FIG. 30-28), which depicts a funeral set in a bleak
provincial landscape outside his home town. Attending the funeral
are the types of ordinary people Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) and
Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) presented in their novels. While an
officious clergyman reads the Office of the Dead, those attending798 Chapter 30 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 1800 TO 187030-27Gustave Courbet,
The Stone Breakers,1849. Oil on
canvas, 5 3 8 6 .Formerly
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (destroyed
in 1945).
Courbet was the leading figure in the
Realist movement. Using a palette of
dirty browns and grays, he conveyed
the dreary and dismal nature of menial
labor in mid-19th-century France.
1 ft.