14: The Age of Positivism
Introduction
We see the ebb and flow of life through the seasons where the need to grow and bloom begins in the spring and by fall nature begins preparing for the winter hibernation. So it is with art through history where the creative ideas are pushed until they reach a zenith and artists, unable to further the styles, move off ina another direction. It's our human desire to be creative and imaginative. Albert Einstein reportedly states " Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." It is the ebb and flow of creativity that can be seen through art history, from the Hellenistic Empire and rising up through the Roman Empire to be torn down again with the fall of that empire. European art rises again through the Middle Ages to culminate in the soaring style in the Age of Gothic. That style is thoroughly explored reaching a climax in the late 14th century and we begin again with a totally new direction in the classical revival of the Florence Renaissance. Beginning in the Italian Renaissance, we see a steady evolution of painting and architectural styles that continues for centuries in Europe with many artists referencing and honoring the great Early and High Renaissance masters. However, by the 19th century, much of the ideas beginning in the Renaissance have been explored and the major works in painting appear more formulaic and lacking in originality. Thus, Europe is ripe for a new direction in art and that is exactly what begins around 1850. With the large painting With A Burial at Ornans , Gustave Courbet rejects the status quo and presents a new vision of painting in stark contrast to other entries at the Paris Salon.
Burial at Ornans , 1849-1850 Gustave Courbet
The Stone Breakers , 1849 Gustave Courbet
Courbet was trained in Paris and frequented the cafés where he formed socialist views through conversations with the prominent journalists, writers and social critics. Encouraged to return to his rural roots, he returned to Ornans where his prosperous family had land. He painted in a realistic style the townsfolk and traveling workers. Using his home as his studio, he painted large canvases that were displayed at the Salon. His painting Burial at Ornans is a significant work depicting a burial. The person being buried is not identified, so perhaps the painting represents the burial of past art styles such as Romanticism. The people are represented on a dreary, overcast day in detail. They are neither glamorized, nor idealized, but instead represented as he observed. This is a stark departure from the academic paintings of the time that often used mythological themes, grand statements of Nature, or Neoclassical subjects intended to inspire higher aspirations and loyalty to a cause.
The Sower, 1850 Jean-François Millet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0juvG7vWXBY