Realism came into its own during the July Monarchy in 19th-century France. The newly emergent working class that resulted from the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century had become disillusioned. The ideals of the social revolution of 1789 (liberty, citizenship, equality) were being crushed under the new bourgeois rule.
Stale Academicism
Art production was characterized as juste milieu. Mainstream artists continued to uphold official ideas and values. Their work accorded with current academic and political ideology: depicting noble themes, events and characters derived from history and classical literature. However, history painting as the top academic genre and the techniques associated with it were regarded as mediocre by radical contemporaries. At this point in art history, academic art showed little, if any artistic or intellectual innovation and appeared stagnant and repetitive of the preceding tradition.
Socialist Theory
In his writings, the French thinker and social theorist Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) incorporated the idea of artistic avant-gardism into his socialist concept as he believed that is the most effective means of spreading the new ideology.
If there is to be a radical change in the social order it has to be preceded by a radical change in art. If artists are to make an impact on the current system, they should first of all suppress the mediocrity of academicism.
Realism: The First Avant-Garde Movement
Courbet's The Stonebreakers (1849) embodies the principle of avant-gardism as it was originally conceived by Saint-Simon. It typifies a work of a politically engaged artist. In particular, Courbet as the leading figure of the Realist movement demonstrates in this painting his conviction in the cause of political radicalism of the nineteenth century France.
Radicalism and Art
The importance of The Stonebreakers lies in that its subject matter and technique correspond to the original concept of artistic avant-gardism where radical art and radical politics define each other. In contrast to the contemporary academic art, in The Stonebreakers one can sense the intensity of the artist's defiance of the current status quo and his determination to change it. Courbet thus fulfils the original Saint-Simonian idea of a politically radical artist leading the society towards new social order.
Working Class Heroes
Unlike history painting, Courbet chose to portray ordinary realities of everyday life of urban and rural working class. The Stonebreakers shows two anonymous men at work. The large format, formerly reserved for history genre, and the close proximity of the figures to the picture plane would have been rather intimidating to a middle class viewer as the presence the lower class men would have been magnified and perceived as an imminent threat.
The two men are insignificant, poor and without identity, not famed heroes. They are engaged in hard physical labour, not in an important historical event. They look rough, not noble. They bodies look real, not idealized. Strained under the weight of the stones, worn-out, as if on the verge of collapsing to the ground.
There is no sign of communication between the two or between them and the viewer. This tension within the scene creates unease for the viewer unable to read the facial expression as the men are facing away. Their poses indicate rejection of the (middle class) viewer and, therefore also rejection of the existing system.
New Social Order, New Technique
Courbet reinforces this effect by employing a new technique. Thick patches of paint and smudged contours evoke roughness in contrast with the clarity and smoothness of highly finished surface of a conventional painting.
The Stonebreakers was an important work of art because it was the most provocative painting of Realism, a movement as the first artistic revolt against bourgeois society.
Sources:
- Wood, Paul: The Challenge of the Avant-Garde, Yale University Press
- Saint-Simon, de Henri: Opinions litteraires, philosophiques et industrielles, 1825, in Art and its Histories: Reader
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