Realism & Naturalism in Literature & Visual Art
Sam Hylwa
The Development of Realism & Naturalism in the Arts
! Realism & Naturalism were allied artistic movements that developed in Europe (mainly in France) during the mid 19th century. ! They began as a rejection of the Romantic movement, with its idealization of Nature and its emphasis on inner emotional and spiritual life. ! The goal was, rather, to give an objective portrayal of reality and to show human life in its ordinary, social milieu.
Features of Realist and Naturalist Art
! Takes as its subject the everyday lives of people from all strata of society. ! In both painting and literature, an emphasis of physical details; in literature, a focus on social realities and detached depictions of human thought and action. ! Willfully addresses sordid and unpleasant aspects of human life, especially scenarios of social injustice, and the difficulties occasioned by the industrialization of society.
Gustave Courbet
A Burial at Ornans (1849-1850)
Gustave Courbet
The Painters Studio (1855)
Jean-Franois Millet
The Gleaners (1857)
Jules Breton
The End of the Working Day (1886-1887)
Honor de Balzac
(1799-1850)
Father of French literary realism, best-remembered for his multi-volume cycle of novels La Comdie Humaine
La Comdie 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 shaping society, sources of power (At the origin of every fortune lies a crime), ambition and social mobility, the relationships of fathers, sons, mothers and daughters, and the roles of men and women in society. Said Engels: I have learned more [from Balzac] than from all the professional historians, economists, and statisticians put together. [Marx & Engels, Literature and Art: Selections from their Writings]
Flauberts Madame Bovary
An important and influential example of psychological realism, it depicts the rich inner life of its title character in a style that eschews the narrators own judgment.
mile Zola & Naturalism
Zola was the selfproclaimed leader of the Naturalist movement, an offshoot of realism that aimed to portray the ways in which social conditions, environment and heredity shaped human character.
Zolas 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, LArgent, La Fortune des Rougons). ! The Macquarts: illegitimate branch, farmers, soldiers, members of the working class (LAssomoir, La Terre, Nana). ! Influenced by determinism and Darwinian evolutionary theory. The characteristics of members of both branches of the family were shaped by heredity. While the Rougons are driven towards power, money and excess, in the lower class environment of the Macquarts these tendencies manifest as alcoholism, violence, and prostitution.
From the preface to La 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 organic lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each individual member of the race those feelings, desires and passionsbriefly, all the natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity--whose outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice.
French Realism & Naturalisms Influence
In painting there were similar movements in many other European countries. In Russia, the Wanderers group led by Ilya Repin gained particular notoriety. Seen below is his Barge Haulers on the Volga (1873)
French Realism and Naturalisms Influence
Some of the most significant works of the 19th century followed 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, Konstantin Stanislavski, Anton Chekhov) ! In 20th century cinema, French poetic realism (Marcel Carnet, Jean Renoir) and Italian neorealism (Roberto Rossellini, Federico Fellini).
List of paintings featured
1.! Black Creek, Gustave Courbet 2.! After Dinner at Ornans, Gustave Courbet 3.! Pastora, Jean-Franois Millet 9. Jokers, Illarion Pryanishnikov 12. October 17, 1905, Ilya Repin 15. Outskirts of Paris, Jean-Franois Raffalli 16. 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. ! Balzacs Introduction to La Comdie Humaine.
[Link]
! mile Zola, The Naturalist Novel, Montreal: Harvest House, 1964.
