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.
Ulrich
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’.
An artist’s workshop with his assistant, several sculptors working with their models, watchmakers in Madrid, an assistant in a print shop, artisans, tinker and repairer.
Paintings of iron and steel production, printing, lead mining, machining a cog wheel, spinning, and developing a photograph.
From physicists to photographers developing their plates, Naturalist painters recorded the science and technology of their time.
Unlike Impressionism, which spread relatively slowly, Naturalism was prominent in the Salon, so spread across Europe and North America like wildfire.
The very large Paris Salon of 1883 introduced the public and critics to a new and growing movement in painting. It wasn’t Impressionism or Post-Impressionism, though.
From 1880, artists concentrated on social aspects of work. They questioned whether young children should be at work, and the role of the worker in society.
The Eclectic Light Company 