1
Q
FRENCH REALISM: PEASANTS AND THE URBAN POOR IN EUROPEAN ART
A
- BY THE MID-19TH CENTURY, INDIVIDUALISM AND NATURALISM IN ART HAD REPLACED HISTORY PAINTING IN GERMANY, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND
- IN FRANCE, BECAUSE OF A HISTORY OF REVOLUTION AND INSTABILITY IN THE POLITICAL SITUATION, THERE WAS MORE OF AN IDEA OF SOCIAL ACTIVISM
- THIS TRANSLATED INTO REALIST ART
2
Q
FRENCH REALISM: PEASANTS AND THE URBAN POOR IN EUROPEAN ART 2
A
THE POST-ROMANTIC GENERATION OF FRENCH ARTISTS CONSISTED OF HONORÉ DAUMIER, JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET, AND GUSTAVE COURBET
- REALISTS PLACED A POSITIVE VALUE ON THE DEPICTION OF THE LOW, THE HUMBLE, AND THE COMMONPLACE – THE SOCIALLY DISPOSSESSED OR MARGINAL IN SOCIETY
- GUSTAVE COURBET SAID THAT THE GOAL OF THE REALIST WAS TO TRANSLATE THE CUSTOMS, THE IDEAS, THE APPEARANCE OF HIS OWN EPOCH INTO ART
- TRUTH WAS IMPORTANT TO THE REALISTS
3
Q
Part 3
A
- THE BARBIZON SCHOOL OF PAINTING TAKES ITS NAME FROM THE VILLAGE OF BARBIZON, NEAR PARIS
- MANY ARTISTS GATHERED THERE INCLUDING MILLET AND CHARLES-FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY
- THE FORMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THEIR ART INCLUDE ITS TONAL QUALITIES, COLOUR, LOOSE BRUSHWORK, AND SOFTNESS OF FORM
- IT IS A PRECURSOR OF FRENCH IMPRESSIONISM
4
Q
A
FRANÇOIS MILLET, THE GLEANERS, 1857 (FRENCH REALISM)
5
Q
A
JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET, THE SOWER, 1850 (FRENCH REALISM; BARBIZON SCHOOL)
6
Q
A
THÉODORE ROUSSEAU, UNDER THE BIRCHES, 1842
- Barbizon landscape
- very interested in nature
- trees bathed in light
- soft/loose painting style, tonal quality
7
Q
A
CHARLES-FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY, LANDSCAPE WITH A POND, 1861
8
Q
THE CANADIAN REALISTS AND THE BARBIZON TRADITION
A
William Brymner
Horatio Walker
Homer Watson
George Reid
William Blair Bruce
9
Q
A
WILLIAM BRYMNER,A WREATH OF FLOWERS (1884)
- A wreath of flower exhibited in London
- he used this work as a diploma piece with the Royal Canadian Academy
- asymmetrical composition (Balance)
- studied/depicted children
- landscape is painted much more loosely children are painted in realist tradition the landscape looks like impressionism
10
Q
William Brymner
A
- artist from Montreal
- went to Paris in 1878 - Big exposition in Paris
- Brymner went as an assistant & stayed
- 1878 entered Academie Julian
- sent paintings canvas to Canada to be sold & exhibited
- became influential teacher at Art Association of Montreal
11
Q
A
WILLIAM BRYMNER, EARLY MOONRISE IN SEPTEMBER, 1899 (FIGURE 2.2)
- loose tonal soft landscape
- lost realist tendencies
12
Q
A
GEORGE REID, CALL TO DINNER, (1888-9)
- farmwife calling son/husband for dinner
- color scheme concentrated on green
- red important because it draws us in the composition
13
Q
George Reid
A
- Ontario farm boy - grew up in rural ontario
specialized in genre paintins (life, what you see around you)
another artists who studied in France
figural paintings - interested in atmosphere & light (Parison influence)
before France trained at the Notions studio
14
Q
Reid 2
A
- set up studio in Toronto & produced a # of large genre paintings - inspired by his own experiences
- always painted Canadian scenes (even in France)
- hired French postman to pose as a Canadian farmers
- 1912 principal of OCAd today
15
Q
A
GEORGE REID, MORTGAGING THE HOMESTEAD (1890)
- most of his work are along realist lines (this painting)
- scene that might’ve been show in Ontario farms during recession
16
Q
A
HORATIO WALKER, THE PIG’S REST (1880S)
17
Q
Horatio Walker
A
- Born in Ontario
- working class family
- age 12 moved to Quebec
- goes to Nottingham to work and meets John Fraser
- doesn’t go to Barbizon
- gets his exposure to Barbizon art from cities in the US
18
Q
Walker 2
A
- 6 months walking tour sketching walks from Montreal to Quebec city along st Lawrence
- wanted to immerse himself in the rural way of life
- Impressionism is a French influence on Canadian art
- became fascinated by pigs (slept in barns)
- successful as an artist in 1880
19
Q
Walker 3
A
- travels to Europe - studies the techniques of the Barbizon artist
- many of his paintings purchased by American galleries
- Canada - main inspiration came from rural society - Quebecers
- Walker did not travel in Europe but was influenced by French work
- summers in Quebec winters in NYC
20
Q
Walker 4
A
- Canada’s best known and most financially sucessful promoter of Barbizon and Hague School aesthetics.
- accomplished oil painter and watercolourist
- during last two decades of the 19th century moved from a kinship with Dutch art to a more sustained interest in barbizon painting.
21
Q
Walker 5
A
- After Walker began consistently to document human life and labour on Île de Orléans.
- principal market for Walker’s work was United States
- in the us referred to as “The American Millet”
22
Q
A
- HORATIO WALKER, PLOUGHING, THE FIRST GLEAM, 1900
- Walker plowing the first gleam
- great use of light
23
Q
A
HORATIO WALKER, OXEN DRINKING 1899, Oil on canvas, 87.6 x 109.2 cm. (NGC)
French Canadian peasant with his box - genre scene
impressionist in the background realist in foreground
24
Q
A
RIGHT: HORATIO WALKER,
AVE MARIA, 1906 (FIG. 2.3)
- painting comparison the pose of the men similar, composition similar
- Ave Maria* - walker & reference to Jean- Francois Millet the Angelus (French Realism)
roadside shrine, peasant suneset, stopped to offer prayer
Angels & millet - 2 peasants, stopped work to say a prayer
25
HOMER WATSON, THE CLOSE OF A STORMY DAY, 1884
26
Homer Watson
- art student in toronto 1874
- grew up in Doon, Ontario
- worked in Nottman studio & meets Walker
- paints scene in countryside - giving the environment - that farmers worked in
- travels to England
27
Watson 2
- promote Canadian paintings
- also didn't like stills still life
- Watson brings new unity to Canadian landscape painting
- Watsons post 1890 recpitulation of the poetic intensity and geopgrahic rootedness of Barbizon precedents gained him popularity with many of the same Canadian collectors and intellectuals who admired Horatio Walker.
28
Watson 3
- Like Walker, Watson made art that celebrated the rural environment
- Watson's devotion to Doon matched Walker's to Île d'Orléans, spent most life there portraying the landscape.
- 1882 decribed by Oscar Wilde as the Canadian Constable and Barbizon without ever having seen Barbizon.
29
HOMER WATSON, THE FLOOD GATE, 1900-01 (FIGURE 2.4)
- depicated a component of his grandfather's mill was typical of his post 1890 art.
- Painted a constable subject - John Constable THE LOCK AT DEDHAM, 1820S
- the most significant difference between the flood gate and Watson's earlier work was his interest in dynamic compositional movement pictorial unity and corresponsingly expressive handling of thickly applied paint.
30
Walker & Watson
- Walker and Watson decided to collaborate in the creation of a Canadian market for Canadian art.
- The outcome was the Canadian art club
- Watson was the first president
- Not a Common style, but individuals co-operating for a mutal benefit
- successful exhibition in 1911.
31
Walker & Watson 2
- Both Walker and Watson did not like abstract and non-objective art
- wanted noble and monumental themes
- watson pioneered Canadian landscape painting
- was a forerunner of the group of seven.
32
Impressionism
- In Paris the first impressionist exhibition consisting of work by some 30 artists held in 1874
- Impressionism was not firmly established in Canada until the first decade of the 20th century.
- By the end of the 19th century however it was claear that impressionism was the first major statement fo modernism in Canadian art.
33
WILLIAM BLAIR BRUCE, THE PHANTOM HUNTER, 1888
34
William Blair Bruce
- studied in Paris
- went to Barbizon
- 28 years old - marries Swedish heirress thus wealthy
- used impressionist techniques - paint directly from nature (outside) rather than studio
- 1st Canadian artist to employ broken brushwork (dabs) & colour scheme of impressionist.
35
WBB 2 1859 - 1906
- he spent a year at the Academie Julian in 1881- 82
- a time when he particularly admired the Barbizon artists (he painted at Barbizon in 1882-85)
- by mid decade he was producing tonalist paintings.
- These works drew on the highly refined colour harmonies and atmospherif effects of James McNeill Whistler.
36
WBB 3
- Bruce established a friendship and whose influence is evident in his Giverny work
- However Bruce's grounding in academic painting meant that such fully resolved forays into Impressionism were not the rule in his career especially his figure paintings.
- After his move to Europe after marriage to Swedish sculptor he employed high-keyed colour and clear fresh light but only as facets of the naturalist approach that had defined his pre 1887 work.
37
WILLIAM BLAIR BRUCE, THE RAINBOW, 1888 (FIGURE 2.5)
- The Rainbow were the first by a Canadian that methodically exploited lively impresisonist burhswork to build flattened compositions based on high-valued colour rather than on rigorously defined form and constrasts of light and dark.
38
Canadian Impressionist
Helen McNicoll *In the Shadow of the Tree* c.1910
oil on canvas.
39
HELEN McNICOLL, IN THE SHADOW OF THE TENT (1914)
40
Helen McNicoll
- Born in Toronto to parents who collected Barbizon and Hague School art
- became one of William Brymners students at the Art Association of Montreal and at his urging went to Paris for further instruction
- Her studies in France were limited to three months; most of her European training was done at the Slade school of art in London in 1902-4
41
McNicoll 2
- 1905 McNicoll was back in England at St. Ives (cornwall) studying at Juluis Olsson's School of Landscape and Sea Painting and being particularly influenced by the School's plein-air-ist principal, Algernon Talmage.
- By 1908 she was working in an impressionist vein
- praised in the Montreal Gazette for her skill in painting sunlight.
42
McNicoll 3
- in the last 2 or 3 years of her life she pur more emphasis on compositional structure and clarity of form without losing her interest in light and high keyed colour.
- in her works the focus on the figure recalls the same prnounced tendency among British impressionists during the 1890s.:
43
Canadian Impressionist 2
FRANCES JONES BANNERMAN,
THE CONSERVATORY, 1883
- arrived from Halifax in 1878
- began incorporating elements of the new painting's light and brushwork into ther essentially naturalist art as early as 1882, conveying a sunny frehness without delving into the details of related theory.
- Bannerman has been credited by Carol Lowrey as the first Canadian to experiment with Impressionism.
44
WILLIAM HENRY CLAPP, THE NEW CHURCH, 1910 (NGC) FIGURE 2.8
45
Maurice Cullen, Logging in Winter, Beaupré 1896.
46
Maurice Cullen
- Cullen was born in Newfoundland but moved to Montreal as a child.
- studied at Ecole de Beaux arts in Paris
- During his first Paris visit in 1889-95 he encountered plein-air Impressionism, a practice in which he was influenced by Blair Bruce.
- in 1896 painting in the Côte-de-Beaupré area painted Logging in winter, at the end of the year, concentrates on sharp light to communicate the crisp brightness of Quebec winters.
47
Cullen 2
- Further (in logging in winter) following impressionist theory cullen shaded much of the snow blue to acknowledge the reflection of the blue sky made his brushwork clearly visible and flattened the image.
- yet he ignored impressionisms fractured paint application and its use of light as a medium that corrodes form ; techniques that were inappropraite to the glare of winter wunflight off snow.
- December 1987 exhibition failed but 15 months later election as an association of the RCA prompted the purchase of three of his paintins from that years RCA exhibition
48
Cullen 3
- 1911 taught at the Art Association of Montreal's annual plein-air sketching trips taking his students to Beaupré and other locations.
- mid 1890s went on sketching trips with friends William Brymner and James WIlson Morrice
- Morrice and Cullen painted at Beaupré over the next two months.
49
MAURICE CULLEN, OLD HOUSES, MONTREAL, C. 1908 (MONTREAL MUSEUM OF FINE ART)
50
The French Impressionists
- In 1846 poet and art critic charles Baudelaire said that modern life had to become the main theme in art.
- The first impressionist exhibition in 1874 is often singled out as a major landmark in the history of modern art.
- impressionism covered a wide range of subjects and techniques
- it was more of a subjective way of looking at art
- it implied personal and spontaneous view of life
51
French Impressionists 2
- one description given at the 1874 exhibition was "they are impressionists in the sense that they render not a landscape but the sensation produced by a landscape"
- Innovations:
- the rejection of chiaroscuro (light/dark juxtaposition) - the rejection of outline - the depiction of the interaction of light and colour - the equalization of brushstrokes across the surface of the canvas
52
Impressionism in Canada
- In Ontario Impressionism got off to a weak start
- Toronto lacked an adequate framework of exhibitions dealers and collectors committed to modernism.
- By mid 1980s Impressionism was being incorporated as an occasional inconsistently applied element iwthin for example the painting of George Reid.
- The first French impressionist painting to go on public view in Toronto was a Claude Monet 1910.
- Montreal painters were the ones who dominated Canadian Impressionism thanks to their extensive experience of Paris.
53
CLAUDE MONET, A WOMAN READING (SUMMERTIME), 1872 (FRENCH IMPRESSIONISM)
