THE PRE-RAPHAELITES AND REALISM Art history has exorcised Pre-Raphaelites from the canon of “correct” Modern art, but the PRB was the first group to self-consciously declare themselves avant-garde artists. The small group set themselves apart from the major art...
Avant-Garde Realism in England: Coping with Contemporary Life The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848-1853) Debuting in the revolutionary year of 1848 under the mysterious acronym “PRB,” the paintings showed a virtuoso demonstration of technical prowess in painting and...
REALISM IN EUROPE Part Two Because art history tends to focus towards all things French, French “Realism” is often considered the exemplar of European Realism. Given that the British did not experience a violent Revolution in 1848, it is certainly correct...
EUROPEAN REALISM Part One In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Revolution of 1848 broke out like a series of brushfires across the continent of Europe. Although the uprising of the lower classes and the peasants was the last significant attempt to achieve...
REALISM IN THE SALONS IN THE 1850s Realism had many faces. As an international impulse seen in European and American art, Realism was not so much a style or a look as a new approach to art, overtaking the old ideas of exhausted Romanticism. By the 1840s, due to the...
THE REALIST ARTIST IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD The history of nineteenth century art is the story of a struggle against schemata in the arts. The only remedy for the artist who wanted to avoid formal formulas, the rules of how to paint and sculpt, was a careful study...
