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Courbet (factual space):
A Burial At Ornans 1849
oil painting on canvas; Spengler describes his landscapes as mechanical object of physics, suggesting Realism. Courbet has broken free of all academic conventions, Renaissance hangovers of the ideal Classical art or the prevailing Romanticism or Neo-Classicism. He developed a radical new style that venerated the working man and his environment & challenged the traditional style of painting taught by the Ecole des Beaux Arts by placing the lives of ordinary working men and women on a par with subjects such as classical mythology or heroic historical events. Courbet painted un-idealized workers & peasants in mundane scenes of everyday life, but using a grand scale normally reserved for grand paintings of religious or historical subjects. The work depicts the funeral of Courbet's great-uncle, September 1848, in Ornans, France. He chose to paint the same townspeople (not models) who had been present at the burial, emphasizing the 'truthful' character of Realism. The picture was executed on a massive canvas (10 by 22 feet) while the mundane character of the burial is reinforced by the title which fails to mention who is deceased, indeed it uses “A” burial further diminishing the event. His life-sized mourners are bereft of any dramatic gestures of grief, or other emotion to suggest nobility of character.
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Manet (factual space): *
The Absinthe Drinker 1859
Considered his first major painting & first original work; full-length portrait of an alcoholic chiffonnier (rag-picker) named Collardet who frequented the area around the Louvre in Paris. The subject is painted in mostly brown, grey and black tones, he is standing, wears a black top hat and is wrapped in a brown cloak, like an aristocrat; he leans on a ledge with the empty bottle discarded on the floor by his feet. Manet later added a half-full glass of absinthe on the ledge (influenced by the realism of Courbet). The work presents a mundane subject on a large scale (6’ x 3.5 ‘). The painter was possibly inspired by Baudelaire's 1857 collection Les Fleurs du mal("The rag-picker's wine”). Manet submitted to the Paris Salon in 1859. It was rejected with only Delacroix voting in its favour. The very subject, absinthe, which was thought to be addictive & considered morally degenerate, would have disqualified the work form the Salon.
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Courbet (Arles): *
Courbet consistently submitted landscapes of the Franche-Comté to the Salon. One picture accepted by the Salon of 1855 was The Stream, a large painting of a bend in the river Brème outside Ornans. The locals called this bend "Puits Noir," or Black Well , in reference to the cool , quiet shadiness of the site . It was well received & Courbet painted several versions . In this series his progressive abstraction is evident. His experiments in spatial representation in which foreground, middle ground & background are held within a shallow, trembling plane. This comes to a head in later versions where the painter constructs a dramatically simplified scene with flat blocks of light & dark. This was Courbet’s first public success in landscape. He discovered a responsive market for such work & saw the connection between the public provocation of his large figural works & the increased saleability of his landscapes. His correspondence shows he was a savvy careerist in a rapidly developing art market. He aggressively courted critics, inviting writers and editors of journals to see his work in his studio, at the Salon, and in his private exhibitions. He promoted himself constantly, both in the press and in his paintings (between 1844-55 he submitted a series of theatricalizing self-portraits to the Salon, making his face as well-known as his name). He certainly understood the benefits of bad press: in 1852 he said: "When I am no longer controversial, I will no longer be important.".
![Stream of Puits Noir 1855 p12].PNG](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/cb0317_341c0772fd5d4bc58a4b44c2035b5545~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_475,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Stream%20of%20Puits%20Noir%201855%20p12%5D_PNG.png)
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Cezanne (Forest of Fontainebleau): *
oil 1879-1882
He produced a number of forests scenes, following this work, in the 1890s.
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Manet (the railway station): *
Manet ignores the traditional natural view as background for an outdoor scene & instead opts for the iron grating which boldly stretches across the canvas. The only evidence of the train is its white cloud of steam. In the distance, modern apartment buildings are seen. This arrangement compresses the foreground into a narrow focus. The traditional convention of deep space is ignored. The reception when first exhibited at the Salon of 1874 was cool. Viewers found its subject baffling, the composition incoherent & its execution sketchy. Some ridiculed the painting.
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Impressionists (and English landscapists): *
Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, 1844 oil on canvas
An example of Turner the Impressionist is the Great Western Railway painting where the train is barely recognisable. As far as Turner was concerned, his study of light was becoming paramount and he did not want objects in the painting to distract from this focus, preferring instead to concentrate on the play of light on clouds, water, skies and fires. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting. His technique was scrutinized carefully by the Impressionists in France, in particular by Claude Monet who carefully studied his techniques.
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Rottmann: * see EndNote<H>
Heidelberg Castle 1815, oil
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K. D. Friedrich:
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818)- a well-known & especially Romantic masterpiece suggests a contradictory impression- both mastery over a landscape and the insignificance of the individual within it. No face is shown, the viewer cannot tell if the prospect facing the young man is exhilarating, or terrifying, or both.
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Runge: *
He painted two versions of Morning but the others did not advance beyond drawings. "Morning" was the start of a new type of landscape, one of religion and emotion.
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Thoma: *
The Grail Castle, 1899, oil on canvas
