The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5 Romanticism, Realism, and the Nineteenth-Century World

96

TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)

96 CHAPTER 30 Industry, Empire, and the Realist Style

96

While Courbet’s scene has the “random” look of a snap-

shot, Millet’s composition, in which the distant haystacks

subtly echo the curved backs of the workers, appears more

formal and contrived. Against Courbet’s undiluted

Realism, Millet’s perception seems Romanticized.

A landmark even in its own time, Gleanersbecame a

symbol of the dignity of hard work, a nostalgic reminder of

a way of life quickly disappearing before encroaching

industrialization. As such, it was copied and mass-produced

in numerous engraved editions.

Courbet, however, remained brutally loyal to nature

and the mundane world; he knew that the carefree peasant

was an idyllic stereotype that existed not in real life, but

rather in the urban imagination. He would have agreed

with his contemporary, the British novelist George Eliot

(Mary Ann Evans), that “no one who is well acquainted

with the English peasantry can pronounce them merry.”

Courbet’s most daring record of ordinary life was his

monumental Burial at Ornans(Figure 30.12). The huge

canvas (over 10 x 21 feet) consists of fifty-two life-sized

Figure 30.12 GUSTAVE COURBET, Burial at Ornans, 1849–1850. Oil on canvas, 10 ft. 3 in. 21 ft. 9 in. For the

introduction to the catalogue that accompanied his one-man show, Courbet wrote a Realist Manifestothat stated

his aim “to translate the customs, the ideas, and the appearance” of his epoch according to his own estimation.

A leading critic claimed that he had depicted “the modern bourgeois in all his ridiculousness, ugliness, and beauty.”