Author Description

In the early nineteenth century, a time marked by keen antagonism between the movements of Romanticism and Classicism, Realism opened up new avenues in painting by evoking reality without idealization and emphasizing topics of political and social relevance. However, Realism cannot necessarily be equated with mimesis. Artists were not concerned with slavishly imitating nature but were seeking to "express the mores, ideas and appearance of their era... by highlighting its distinctive character," as remarked by a seminal figure of the movement, Gustave Courbet. This publication focuses on the fundamental ambivalence inherent to pictorial Realism as oscillating between between idealism and naturalism, protest and reactionism, modernity and melancholy, genre scenes and historicism. Works by Gustave Courbet, Ernest Biéler, Albert Chavaz, Rudolf Schlichter, Mario Sironi, Gustave Jeanneret, and André Derain shed light on all the various articulations of this multifaceted movement. Ausstellung / Exhibition: Fondation Pierre Arnaud, Lens, Schweiz/Switzerland 19.12.2014-19.4.2015