07 / 10 · 1840–1880
No idealising, no sermons: painters show workers and daily life as they are.
The Gleaners · Read more →After the revolutions of 1848, Courbet declared, “I cannot paint an angel because I have never seen one.” Realists rejected the myths and histories of the and painted peasants, labourers and provincial funerals instead, often on the grand scale reserved for history painting, challenging art's hierarchy of subjects.
Millet gave rural labour a quiet dignity; Manet dressed classical compositions in the clothes of modern Parisians and caused scandal; in Russia, Repin painted the poor with a sharp social conscience.
