AVANT-GARDE REALISM IN FRANCE: GUSTAVE COURBET In 1845, The art critic, Théophile Thoré (who “discovered” the Dutch artist, Jan Vermeer) complained that French art was “…without system, without direction, and abandoned to individual fantasy.”...
THE PAINTER OF MODERN LIFE Like many writers before and after him, Baudelaire wrote without specific commission, on “spec” as it were. This essay on Constantin Guys, an illustrator for the Illustrated London News, was actually written in 1860 and would not be...
THE RURAL REALISM OF GUSTAVE COURBET Part One As a self-proclaimed “Realist” in a highly charged political atmosphere, Gustave Courbet challenged the conventions of the French Salon system. For ten years, Courbet had waited his chance to break through in...
BAUDELAIRE AND MODERNITY Every age needs its observer and every era requires an interpreter. To elevate the culture above mere description, that individual has to be an odd cross between a poet and a reporter. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a renegade poet, a...
BAUDELAIRE AS ART CRITIC “We are going to be impartial. We have no friends—that is a great thing—and no enemies.” Thus Charles Baudelaire began his career as an art critic with the Salon of 1845. With a tone we suspect to be sardonic, the young writer...
SINCERITY AND ARTIFICE IN REALISM England and France By the middle of the nineteenth century, Realism was an international movement. In England, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were the rebellious Realists, challenging the classicism of the Academy. The English artists...
