Contents of this series, together with a list of major Naturalist painters and links to fuller accounts of their paintings.
naturalism
Around 1890, two aspiring painters passed through a phase of Naturalism: in Spain, Joaquín Sorolla, and in Sweden, Anders Zorn, both on their way to become masters.
Paintings from Erik Henningsen, Léon Lhermitte, Émile Friant, and Jean-Eugène Buland in the 1890s, towards the end of Naturalist painting.
How optical effects familiar from photography became incorporated into Naturalist paintings, and major painters adopted photography as an art form.
How the introduction of secular, free and mandatory education in the French Third Republic was depicted at the time, from cradle to doctorate.
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.
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.
The Eclectic Light Company 