Realism: "Art must be dragged into the gutter"

Realism and Gustave Courbet

Courbet emerged on the art scene through his politically radical Realist paintings. Realism grew as a rejection of the established Romanticist form of painting which was popular at the time. Realism attempts to depict everyday events with objectivity. 

Courbet's adherence to these principles was zealous and dogmatic. He wrote that he would only ever paint "things that are visible and tangible to the artist, an abstract object ... is not within the domain of painting."

One of his most famous examples of this is the above painting The Stone Breakers. It portrays working the everday life of the working poor in a style which compassionately depicts their suffering while also refusing to be caught up and distorted by emotion. It's adherence to the principle of the real is clear. 

Courbet shook the art world as he believed he must when he dramatically decried in the face of criticism: "Art must be dragged into the gutter!"

But, what then is to be said of one of Courbet's other paintings, Woman with a Parrot?

Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art through the Ages: a Global History. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

Rubin, James Henry. Courbet. Phaidon, 2003.