Why Realist artists were rebels?

Rebels of a new generation

Realist artists were not interested in the past, or in anything that they didn’t personally experience. That was summed up in a quote by the patriarch of the movement, Gustave Courbet: “I have never seen angels. Show me an angel and I will paint one.” Art that preceded them, in their view, was simply false. Nowhere will you find in Realist art biblical scenes as in Baroque art, mythological themes as in Rococo art, or mythical heroes and historical battles as in Neoclassical art. Unlike the Romantics, who painted mystical nature, the Realists saw only urban wasteland. Their focus was on the lower class and their dire conditions of work. That approach was ground-breaking because even when the poor were previously present in paintings, as in the Academic art style, they were glorified and shown living an idealized life. Devoid of history, literature, religion or mythology, the artist’s focus was on contemporary social issues. The heroic portrayal of the working class was seen as a political agenda and their art style was rightly regarded anti-authoritarian. The Realists were both artists and social activists.

Realism rebelled against the conventional and academic rules of art, which were promoted by the French Académie des Beaux-Arts. In that academy, artists received their artistic training, and later their paintings could be displayed in the Academy’s Salon. But Realism was one of the “radical” art styles which did not conform to the academy’s standards. When Gustave Courbet, had his artwork repeatedly rejected, he had to start his own exhibition, making him “the first artist ever to stage a private exhibition of his own work.”

The emergence of photography brought a decline in landscape paintings. Also portrait paintings and miniatures were replaced with photographs. The three centuries-old custom of sitting for hours in front of an artist, à la Mona Lisa, was no longer required or in demand. The story is familiar to us, new technology brought an end to the careers of many people, however the Realist artists still found in photography an inspiration. Their art was not mimicry of photographs, but an accurate, unadorned report on modern life in the nineteenth-century.