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From Romanticism to Naturalism:Political, Social, and Cultural Realism

Week 6 – Lecture 1

19 February 2008

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wednesday quiz formats

I. From Romanticism to Realism

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A) Social Causes: Invention of Working ClassA new fascination with (lower-class) “reality”

B) Socio-Political Causes: Revolutions of 1830 and 1848

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830)

Victor Hugo

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Honoré Daumier, Massacre on the rue Transnonain, 15 April 1834

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1848 Socialists vs. Liberals

Ernest Meissonier, Barricade in the Rue De La Mortellerie,

June 1848 (Memory of Civil War) [1849]

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Messonier, The Barricade [detail]

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Romanticism

Realism

Courbet, The Stonebreakers 1849: Laborers as heroic subject-matterNB: massive canvases usually reserved for gods, monarchs, heros, classical subjects

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“Above all, the art of painting can only consist of the representation of objects which are visible and tangible for the artist . . . .

“…I maintain, in addition, that painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things…It is a completely physical language, the words of which consist of all visible objects; an object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.”

--- Gustave Courbet, Letter to Courrier du dimanche (25 December 1861)

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“an object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.”

KEY: Realism is a political weapon – it delegitimates neo-classicism, romanticism, religious art as being “UN-real” --- i.e., “falsifying” or “distorting” reality

… but before you buy Courbet’s rhetoric about “reality” too quickly….

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Piet Mondrian,

Composition II (1929)

“an object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.”

--Courbet (1861)

Byzantine (8th c.) : flat/hieratic Mondrian (20th c.) flat/abstract

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History does not move in a straight line…

For “realist” novel in English, think of Charles Dickens: e.g., Hard Times, Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, etc.

Realist novel in France begins with Balzac… ultimate expression is Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

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1857 – Flaubert: immorality trial

1859

II: Post-1859: From Realism to Naturalism

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Marx + Darwin: The world is a harsh world of competition and survival of the fittest

{“Home” = safe warm refuge}

NB: We are far from Newton!!!

Charles Darwin:

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of FavouredRaces in the Struggle for Life [1859]

HEREDITY

Charles Darwin:

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of FavouredRaces in the Struggle for Life [1859]

Elected November 1860

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“Hardware” [population] changed;“Software” [mentalities] stayed same

Result:Cholera epidemics

• Cholera: – spread through

contaminated water

• 1830s: beginning of modern epidemics:– France: 100K;– Britain: 50K; – Russia: 238K

• 1854: 150K in France alone

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Cholera: thought to be spread through the air [“miasma”]

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Baron von Haussmann’s aqueducts bring fresh water into Paris (1850s)NB: SOFTWARE CATCHES UP WITH HARDWARE INVENTS NEW H.W.!!!

“Cholera”complains to Baron von Haussmann that the Water / Sewer system has put him out of work

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Paris Sewer System Pleasure Cruises!Waste management / clean water longer life expectancies

More sewer pleasure cruise… notice all fresh water!

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1910 →

Boston, 1830

← “Beacon St.” [dam]

↓ “Back Bay”

Beacon Hill

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1858-1864

Using steam shovels, 35-car trains were loaded in ten-minute intervals for trips from granite quarries in suburban Needham to the Back Bay.

Three trains ran on the tracks, each making 25 trips a day.

Between 1858 and 1864, the state filled 53 acres of the Back Bayusing this train-and-steam-shovel system.

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1890

http://www.iboston.org/rg/backbayImap_1890.htm

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Naturalism as late form of realism

= a new obsession

with HEREDITY

and with deterministic

“Nature”

Biology and passing on

“healthy blood”

Cf. Bourgeois family /

“home” / “procreation”

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Literary Naturalism: Nature/Fate/Society crush human beingsAnti-Romantic: Nothing noble about being crushed

Emile Zola Edith Wharton

Diorama of Emile Zola’s novel Germinal at Musée Grevin

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FATE!!!

DESTINY!!!

INEVITABILITY!!!

NECESSITY!!!

INEXORABILITY!!!

Es muß sein!!!

“FATALISM + PROGRESS” = “The 19TH-C. Heavenly Twins”…

--- Jacques Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner

Romanticism

Naturalism

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Technological: photography / press

The mystery of the girl’s body foundon the rue du Vert-Bois

[1886]

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Naturalist painting: tries to imitate precision of detail /

verisimilitude of photography

Christian Krohg,The Sick Girl [1880-81]

Late 19th-c. “Realism” or “naturalism”

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III. “End of the Soul”:

Psychology

Anthropology

Sociology

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III. “End of the Soul”:

Psychology

Anthropology

Sociology

PHRENOLOGY [Craniology = head]:Criminality / Race / Degeneration written on the body

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OBSERVABLE:

measurement / quantification

Eyes

Long hands

Ears…

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• “...he mumbled, and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said Yes, when he produced a thing like callipersand got the dimensions back and front and every way…

• “I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there [i.e., into the heart of darkness]…” And when they come back? “Oh, I never see them… the changes take place inside, you know.”

• “‘Ever any madness in your family?’ he asked…”

Note fascination in Spectacular Realities with colonial “primitives”

Anthropo - Sociology

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Note intersections of criminality / madness / race

“Hysteria” diagnosis <--- uterus: women [mostly] acting “ab-normal”

Finding bodily causes for symptoms of depression e.g.,

uncontrollable crying, rage, religious fervor, shopping, kleptomania

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Lemonnier, The Hysteric (1885)

“Feminization of Religion”

Jean-Martin Charcot [and hypnotized patient]at the Salpêtrière neurological clinic, Paris

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Charcot’s “crucified” position: from his “iconography of the hysteric”

Charcot’s “supplication” position

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Augustine [Charcot’s model] demonstrates “crucified” position

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Augustine demonstrates “supplication” position

Iconography of the hysteric:Attitude de supplication

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Immaculate Conception

8 December 1854

Anti-naturalist dogma

[Darwin: 1859]

Iconography of the hysteric:Attitude de crucifiement

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Bernini,

Ecstasy of St. Teresa

Maybe she was just hysterical???