Realism in the Modern World - Essay Example

Realism in the Modern World Realism as an art movement was an approach to art that was based on the idea that art should be focused on trying to reflect life as it really was. This meant capturing the daily common activities and the daily common images that confronted those living in the world at the time the painting was made. It was inspired in part by various political movements of the period that tended to focus on the rights of the common man. In attempting to reflect life in all its objective detail with the accuracy this movement called for, artists taking a Realist approach typically sought the most ‘common’ people of the fields and villages to use as subjects. They then depicted these people in their most humble and menial tasks. Gustave Courbet was one of the most influential writers of the period. In Courbet’s written thoughts on the philosophy of realism can be found much of the philosophy of later cubist artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Courbet was a painter but he also wrote a great deal about his thoughts regarding where art would go in the future since it was clear that technology would soon be replacing the importance of the painter as a recorder of visual imagery. The camera was a brand new technology, but it proved that man would soon have the ability to click a button and create, without brush or easel, an image of their loved one. In the face of this modern change, Courbet suggested “painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist in the representation of real and existing things” (cited in Finocchio, 2004). However, the primary technical concern of Courbet seemed to be to deviant from a strictly pictorial interpretation of what is meant by ‘real’. This included elements such as abandoning some of the ‘rules’ of in order to capture a more natural flow of line and form. By retaining rough elements of the painting such as sketching lines or other ‘mistakes’, Courbet felt he was more accurately representing both the moment being expressed on the canvas and the felt emotion of the moment as it was experienced by the artist. He continued to refine his ideas of the real as an abstract concept held within the mind thanks to his continued associations with the ‘rough’ people of the fields and industries, finally writing to a friend in 1850, “… in our so very civilized society it is necessary for me to live the life of a savage. I must be free even of governments. The people have my sympathies, I must address myself to them directly” (cited in Insecula, 2008). In his Realist Manifesto, Courbet says the goal of Realist art is “to translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my epoch according to my own estimation” (cited in Finnochio, 2004). Within this statement, it is obvious that Courbet felt the ‘real’ was only apparent within the previously unrepresented classes of society. However, he also seemed to recognize that what he was presenting as real was a representation of what he perceived as real to himself – the real was actually a representation of what he chose to see. The modernists, such as Picasso or Braque, took Courbet’s ideas further as they focused on realism as it existed in the emotions of the scene themselves with little or no reference to the pictorial symbols or issues of the times. Lyotard (1984) describes their process as an attempt “to make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can neither be seen nor made visible” (78). This idea is commonly called the sublime. The sublime is defined as a quality of transcendent greatness “with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation” (Wikipedia, 2006). The presence of this sublime element is only made known when the image inspires the imagination in a specific direction. It does this through the various elements made visible or understandable within the representation. Although it cannot be directly defined or imaged, the significance of the sublime is that it reveals the idea that there is no inherent definitive meaning to the work without the interpretation of the viewer being involved. Because no resolution of the image is made explicitly clear, the viewer must come to an understanding of his or her own. The central ideas of Cubism were to represent the concept of the real as it existed within its given space/time/emotional context. Author Peter Wollen characterized it in 1975 as a means of breaking the traditional boundaries of visual signifiers and symbols in order to directly reference the relationship between the signifier and the signified (Wollen, 1975). “What soon emerged as the dominant strand was that theorized by Clement Greenberg as art’s self-interrogation of its own practices and materials, as calling attention to itself” (Lapsley & Westlake, 1989: 190). Cubism was essentially an exploration of the limitations and techniques of art itself as a means of communicating an idea. This is perhaps better understood when applied to examples such as Picasso’s painting ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’, one of the first representations of this style of art, or Georges Braque’s painting ‘ In his painting ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’, Picasso represents each character as an abstract collection of geometrical shapes rather than a connected humanoid depiction. This emphasis on the mechanical shapes that comprise the women is a direct reference to the modernizing process and machination of every element of society. These geometric shapes are arranged in such a way as to express the emotions and these characters are experiencing at the time the painting was created. There are five recognizable female figures within the image. Only one of the figures is sitting while the others adopt different seductive poses. One woman holds back a red curtain to reveal the other four as if she controls both the entrance to this world of women as well as their ability to exit. Two of the women wear fantastic African-inspired masks while the other women wear decidedly unattractive faces, distorted through the painter’s vision. The only other discernable feature within the painting is a small plate of fruits in the bottom center. There were numerous discrepancies in the painting from what was generally acknowledged as ‘art’ at the time, causing the painting to receive a strongly negative response. The subjects are only symbols of the general. They are wooden and unnatural in most respects. Within the painting, it is the colors and shapes that convey the emotional content of the work. The two women in the center, for example, express sensuality, with “their arms crooked over their heads in an age-old formula for seductive femininity” (Chave, 1994: 598). All of the women’s bodies are created through a strange combination of delicate curves and jagged hard edges. Bent elbows and knees take on dagger sharpness while less sexual elements, such as legs and arms have a shapely curve. Even the fruit in the painting seems sadly insufficient, withered as if the hostility in the room full of prostitutes is too heavy for it to retain its appeal. Solid areas of color refine and define the impressions Picasso was struggling to convey. Throughout the painting, he maintains a delicate balance of deep reds, pale blues and medium tans. Although the subject is a group of prostitutes which would seem to suggest a bright red symbolism, Picasso chooses to deepen the color to the rusty blood shade of old blood to emphasize the women’s cynicism and experience in their field. The women are only framed by this color on one side while reddish skin tones provide necessary balance. Within Picasso’s painting can be seen the earliest suggestion of multiple perspectives seen at once. This was a technique adopted and practiced by Georges Braque who worked closely with Picasso in developing the Cubist style. The experience of modernity was quite well expressed in Braque’s work “Woman With a Guitar.” In this piece, the same geometric and broken approach is taken to depict the image of a nude women sitting with a guitar and perhaps surrounded by sheet music. Rather than depicting meaning through color, Braque strictly limits his palette to brown and black, giving the piece the sense of an antique sketch. Despite the suggestion of a drawing executed quickly, the image is broken up into a series of overlapping squares, each of which reveal a different element of the picture. The woman’s face, for example, seems to be comprised of lines available on at least three different pieces of paper. By depicting the work in this way, Braque captures the very real sense of the modern world as a world full of constant change, eternal fracturing and reconstitution within the framework of passing time. Both of these artists captured a sense of realism in terms of the emotions of the moment and the mechanizing processes of the modern world. While neither artist likely anticipated all of the concepts and ideas that have been developed regarding Cubism in the past several decades, they undoubtedly considered some of these possibilities and messages and deliberately worked to leave room for other approaches as well. This ambiguity in the work functions as a strong reminder of the strongest characteristics of the modern age such as the passing of time, the dominance of the machine, the fractured individual and the multiple truths that could exist at once. Works Cited Braque, Georges. “Woman With a Guitar.” Oil and Charcoal on Canvas. Paris: Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne, (1913). Chave, Anna C. “New Encounters with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: Gender, Race and the Origins of Cubism.” The Art Bulletin. Vol. 76, N. 4, (December 1994): 596-611. Finocchio, Ross. “Nineteenth-Century French Realism.” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–2004. Heath, S. “Joan Riviere and the Masquerade.” Formations of Fantasy. V. Burgin, J. Donald & C. Kaplan (Eds.). London, (1986). Insecula. (2008). Jean-Desire-Gustave Courbet. Lapsley, Robert & Westlake, Michael. Film Theory: An Introduction. Manchester University Press, (1989). Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, (1984). Picasso, Pablo. “Les Demoiselles dAvignon.” Oil on canvas. New York: Museum of Modern Art, (1907). Wikipedia contributors. “Sublime (philosophy).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. (2006). Wollen, Peter. “The Two Avant-Gardes.” Printed in Readings and Writings. London: Semiotic Counter-Strategies, (1975; 1982). Read More