Courbet Burial Social, Research Paper Example

During the mid-19^th centuries, art was evolving from just wasn’t pretty pictures created to aesthetically please the elites, and other middle and high class individuals, but it was changing to show a more realistic view of society. The movement rapidly gained steam in the mid-1800s, the realist movement mainly starting in France, sought to convey an objective and truthful vision of contemporary life. (Finocchio, 2004) Some of the most popular artists that embodied the realism movement were Jean-Francios Millet Sheep Shearing Beneath a Tree, Rosa Bonheur Horse Fair, Honore Daumier The Third Class Carriage, and Courbet Millet Burial at Ornans.  While the realist movement spread farther than France and across Europe, even in the West, Courbet and Daumier, were among the most famous artists of the times.

In examining the work of Courbet, the painting, Burial at Ornans (1849, Louvre) is one of his most famous pieces. This realist art was created to depict his hometown in Ornans, and his family at the burial of is uncle. Courbet broke the mold of artists using models in their paintings, and instead painted the townspeople that all came to the burial. His social message of painting the realism artwork was to put an end to the Romanticism in which was only reserved for the elite. Instead, “Courbet lifts everyday ugliness to a level of universality, investing the figures (each of whom he knew personally) and a familiar village scene with monumental grandeur and nobility.” (Visual-Arts, n.) In essence, it was a burial of this illusion that was only obtainable for the elite. In looking The Third Class Carriage (1865, MET) by Daumier, was another popular realist painting in which was largely inspired by contemporary events that depicted everyday scenes. This oil on canvas painting shows the scenes on the rail travel of the working class Parisians. Unlike the dreamy landscapes of the Romanticism era, this painting showed the reality of the dirty, cramped, and uncomfortable compartments that were given to those that could not afford the first or second class tickets. The painting shows the hard benches filled with a woman holding her infant, next to an older woman, and a sleeping young boy that socially showed the effects of the industrialization of Paris in the mid-19th century.

References

Courbet, Gustave. (1849). A Burial at Ornans. Musee d’Orsay, Paris.

Daumier, Honore. A (1862). The Third–Class Carriage. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Finocchio, Ross. (2004). Nineteenth-Century French Realism. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rlsm/hd_rlsm.htm

Gustave Courbet. (n.d). Visual-Arts. Retrieved from http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-artists/courbet.htm