Diana's Gallery: Realism

T: Gleaners

A: Jena- Francois Millet

D: 1857

L: Musee d’Orsay, Paris

Short Bio:

Jean Francois Millet was born in Normandy, France 1814. He was the first child and grew up in stock life. Millet was guided by two priests from which he acquired american literature from before heading to study with Paul Dumouchel, a portrait painter. By age 21, Millet became a full time student in painting, but after his scholarship terminated in 1839, he was rejected submission to the salon. After leaving to Paris, a year later, Millet went back to Cherbourg, where he wanted to continue his career as a painter and married a young lady known as Pauline- Virginie Ono- they then moved back to Paris. Throughout the years, Millet was rejected many submissions into the salon, and sadly his wife passed away. Millet went back to Cherbourg, where he found and married Catherine Lemair in 1853. She produced 9 of his children and they remained inseperable for the rest of their lives. Millet was highly influenced with painting peasant features in a Barbizan school, by and artists known as Honore Daumier and Alfred Sensier, with their draughtmanship of figures and political views. The 1850s was when Millet started gaining popularity in his paintings. He endured artistic shifts, where he went from representing peasant life to depicting the modern social conditions during his time. Coming from peasant stock, Millet looked up to farmers and thought agriculture life to be beauty. Millet wanted to depict the reality of stock life. Towards the end of his career, Millet started using loose brush strokes and a lighter palette which was starting to tie into the Impressionist style, but he still maintained a distance from that stylistic era. Jean Francois Millet died on January 20, 1875 in Barbizon, he depicted many images of peasant life and did so with great value and empathy, he became a great influence to artists like Van Gogh, Pissaro, Seurat, Boudin, Monet, and many more.

Realism:

Social Structure: The Industrial Revolution increased urbanization and led to the alienation and immigration of many individuals. It aroused abuses toward the urban working class which led to the formation of labor unions. The bourgeoisie was greedy and enjoyed increased prosperity and leisure time.

Political Structure: Socialism emerged as a method for curing society’s ills.

Style: Artworks made after 1860s were known as “Modern” or “Modernist”. We learn that art was made for art’s sake rather than for patrons. Artists and society had a critical view of the industrial way of life and greed. Art focused on sympathy for the working class and a desire to depict a truthful vision- the reality. Photography: New Medium of the late 19th century, but was questioned if Photography was to be considered art. In 1888, Eastman develops the first snapshot camera, making photography accessible to the public. Many realists used photographs as reference for their paintings.

Interpretation and Explanation:

Based off of my research on Millet, He tried to depict the reality of urban poverty. This image also known as Gleaners shows the rural work that these women carried out on a daily basis. Gleaners were known to be poor women who were allowed to pick the last of the grains after a day's harvest. After farm land was cleared, women stayed to pick extra/ forgotten grains. It represents the nobility of the unfortunate poor and their hard work. This image was not meant to be patronized, in fact Millet wanted to show the concept of women's work. During this era we learned about the abuse towards the lower, working class which plays a role into Millet's theme of moral messages. Millet harshly depicts the back breaking duties of these women, his usage of certain bright colors draws attention to the backs, necks, and arms of the wome. We also see a landlord at the distance, thus Millet proves how the wealthy isolates themselves or have distanced themselves from the poor, also to show that the urban life was far from theirs. I learned that Millet was in love with depicting rural life and objects, I can tell that this was one of those images in which he tried to show the reality of urban life. Millet wanted to reveal the ugly truth - which is that of the real world. Millet succeeded in depicting the social and political changes during his time period.

Connection:

I can interpret that realism today is represented in many of today's movies. For example in the movie, 12 years a slave, a colored man was abducted and sold into slavery. Solomon was free once, but he started to experience the reality of being a slave. They had worse struggles than to struggle for food- many things he could get before his abduction. Another movie, Slumdog millionaire, we see the realities of poverish life in India. Not only did I learn about the realities of how females were treated, but this movie captured how many children endured a life without parents, struggling to survive.