Paintings of urban poverty were acclaimed at the Salon during the 1880s. A small selection from Fernand Pelez, Antonino Gandolfo (Catania, Sicily), Christian Krohg (Norway) and others.
naturalism
Starting from Manet’s notorious painting of a picnic in 1863, socialising at mealtime became a popular theme in paintings that weren’t in the least bit Impressionist.
It moved from depicting the rural poor in the countryside, to scientists teaching, a major research meeting, technology in the workplace, and the rise of the clinic in hospital medicine.
Inspired by Émile Zola’s novels, Nordic painters including Krohg, and Werenskiold, American Charles Ulrich, Gandolfo in Sicily, and others. How Roll’s painting of a strike led to Zola’s ‘Germinal’.
Challenging Naturalist paintings with equally challenging readings: a beggar giving his last coin, 5 hardened gamblers in a dive, a young apprentice making a cog, and a council group portrait.
Trained in Paris from 1877, she met Bastien-Lepage 5 years later, and became his protégé. Rapid success with the urban poor, she died just 3 months before her mentor.
His final two years, painting the rural poor in France, and street children in London, in increasingly documentary form. Then his final works before an untimely death.
Biography and paintings of the lead Naturalist, from his 2 failed attempts to win the Prix de Rome, switching to depicting the rural poor, and growing success at the Salon.
Start with genre paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, add GĂ©ricault’s ‘Raft of the Medusa’, Courbet and Millet’s social realism, Manet and Lhermitte and you’ve made Naturalism.
A spectrum of purposes and styles, inspired by Émile Zola’s experimental approach to novels, documenting ordinary people with objectivity, in a neutral realism.
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