Art of the actual

Description

"The French Republic--with its rallying cry for liberty, equality, and fraternity--emerged in 1870, and by 1880 had developed a coherent republican ideology. The regime pursued secular policies and emphasized its commitment to science and technology. Naturalism was an ideal aesthetic match for the republican ideology; it emphasized that art should be drawn from the everyday world, that all subjects were worthy of treatment, and that there should be flexibility in representation to allow for different voices.Art of the Actual examines the use of naturalism in the 19th-century. It explores how pictures by artists such as Roll, Lhermitte, and Friant could be read as egalitarian and republican, assesses how well-known painters including Degas, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec situated their painting vis-à-vis the dominant naturalism, and opens up new arguments about caricatural and popular style. By illuminating the role of naturalism in a broad range of imagery in late-19th-century France, Richard Thomson provides a new interpretation of the art of the period"-- "The book explores the representation between the political culture of early Third Republic France and the visual arts, primarily painting. The Republic had come into being in 1870, but it was only about 1880 that its politics became coherently republican. The regime, with its rhetoric of liberty, equality and fraternity, pursued policies which were secular and anti-clerical, also emphasizing its commitment to science and technology. By this time naturalism was becoming the dominant mode in contemporary intellectual life and literature. With its understanding that art of all kinds should be drawn from the everyday world, that no subject was unworthy to be treated, and a degree of flexibility in representation , naturalism was an ideal aesthetic match for republican ideology. This consensual alliance was the dominant cultural mode in early Third Republic France, found in public decorations, Salon paintings and throughout visual culture. The book also considers how some artists, aided by the liberalization of censorship in 1881, stretched the frontiers of the descriptive and added a critical edge to their work by introducing elements of caricatural style into their work. It asks whether under an ostensibly egalitarian Republic there was genuinely art produced by and for the people, not necessarily in hock to naturalist paradigms, or whether art was essentially filtered down from the upper echelons. The various ways artists stretched naturalist expectation, particularly by engaging with scientific concepts, is also assessed"--

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