Realism: Kassidy Wong talks on Courbet's "After Dinner at Ornans", 1849.

http://library.artstor.org/library/secure/ViewImages?id=8CJfdzIoMloyLyw4ejp3TX0o&userId=gzREdzch&zoomparams=

Artist: Gustave Courbet 
Title: After Dinner at Ornans 
Year: 1848-1849 
Medium: Oil on canvas 
Dimension: 195 x 257 cm

After Dinner at Ornans was a painting by Gustave Courbet during 1848-1849. It is an oil painting on canvas and its size is 195 x 257 cm. Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter born in 1819. Courbet was only interested in painting what he observed and depicting the real world. “Show me the angle and I’ll paint one” is a famous quote about Courbet and he was known as the chief exponent of 19th-century French Realist paintings and influential to most of the paintings of that period.

In this essay, first I will briefly describe the artwork and follow by the historical background of France in mid-19^th century. Then I will continue with explaining the realism. After that, I will further discuss the composition of this painting and how this painting fits in the style of realism. At last, I will sum up the whole essay with my opinion.

       

After Dinner at Ornans was one of his early famous paintings. Courbet painted numbers of peasants and comtemporary ‘history’ paintings between 1849 – 55, such as A Burial at Ornans and The Meetings. After Dinner at Ornans ,this life-sized painting depicted the honest image of the simple provincial life and the rural atmosphere. It was an enormous rendering of a silent evening that Courbet and his intimates were relaxing around the table after dinner. The man in the left-size was Courbet’s father and the one in the background was Urbain Cuenot, one of the regular visitors. Adolphe Marlet was the one with his back turned. They were listening to the music performed by Promayet, who is the one on the extreme right side playing his instrument. This painting was a direct observation from the everyday lives of the working class instead an idealized or exotic imagery.

        In 19^th century, France entered a period after French Revolution. In the mid-19^th century, July Monarchy was ended and the period of the Second Empire was being developed. It built the idea of capitalism. The French society called for a democratic reform. The desire of electoral reforms was strong and thus France was entered the period of Second Empire in 1852. Political reform in France was remarkable and it also resulted in social changes. Before mid-19^th century, Romanticism was promoted in France and it sought for ‘ideal’. Nonetheless, the idealized country was not realized. At the same time, rationalization was developed in Europe. People started to rethink their reality rationally. Instead of imaginary and emotional in Romanticism, people attempted to reveal the darkness of the society truly and depict the truth.

Before mid-19^th century, art in France was dominated by the academies (primarily known as Neo-classicism and Romanticism) which emphasized the exotic scenes and aesthetic experience. It usually bring with a strong emotion and exaggeration of the scenery. Thus, when Courbet’s paintings was shown in the Salon, it brought a great debate on the style of Art as his art work was completely different from what people’ cognition of art – which was Realism.

        Realism is regarded as an attempt that representing the outside world objectively based on the dispassionate observation of contemporary life (Rubin, Oxford Art Online). Realist painters used spontaneous details to portray typical contemporary life and situation truthfully. The word ‘Real’ means it is not man-made or imaginary (Bianciotti, 2011). It is a rejection of unreal and artificial situation. They avoided the idealized and exotic Neo-classicism and Romanticism, instead, focusing on the everyday life of ordinary people. According to Malpas (1997), it stated

“Gustave Courbet proposed that instead of a history subject, or the moral, sentiment or ‘story’ of the painting dictating how it should look, as was nineteenth-century academic practice, the painter should let things and their appearance stand for themselves.”

Courbet valued the importance of a real painting and he depicted the reality of working class. "Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things . . . an object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting” (Courbet, 1861).

       

After dinner at Ornans is a life-size painting which means the objects in the painting are in real-life scale. Courbet was engrossed in the ‘real’ paintings thus most of his earliest paintings were painted in life-size. This kind of paintings bring the truthfulness of the scene and tallied with the style of ‘Realism’.

        After dinner at Ornans depicts a serene evening. The entire painting was in tones of brown. It shown a usual working class life without any exaggeration. The colours used in this paintings conformed to the place and the time which teemed with quietness. Lighting comes from right side (outside) and the central part of the painting is contrasted with the surrounded part. Objects in the foreground and middle ground are clearly shown, however, objects in the background submerged by the dark color. “It deeply impressive for its harmony of browns, grays, whites, and blacks within a narrow but marvelously nuanced range of values” (Fried, 1992). Though the tones of brown are originally harmonious, Courbet showed his skill of detaildness within few colours.

The man in the middle, who grasps the attention of the audience first, nonetheless, is excluded from the painting as only his back is shown. The other three men were dressed in darker colour and more likely to dissolve into the background. It is no doubt that this lighting was naturally from the sunlight and Courbet was not supposed to emphasize anyone of them. All of them are in the lower part of the painting and it shown that Courbet’s eye level was higher than the men sit. He should be sit on a higher chair to create this eye level. None of them was the main character in this paintings and the settings was ordinary without an obvious posture.

The facial expression of those men was stuporous as they were all experiencing the music. The room is immersed in quietness and tiredness. The only sound is come from the instrument and none of the men was going to break the silent. The scene of the painting is ordinary, simple, normal and reflects the actual scene of that moment which we can identify it as a realist painting.

         After dinner at Ornans is depicting four ordinary French men in the evening. It was a usual scene in mid-19^th century France. Its scale shows that Courbet tried to depict the actual scene of that moment as it is a life-sized painting. There is no main character in this painting and it was truly reflecting the actual rural lives of the French. After dinner is unemotional, real and revealing the unseen side of the noble class who dominated the Academy.

Courbet gained his fame with After dinner at Ornans. Salon was known as the exhibition of the artwork of different artists. Before Courbet, the paintings displayed in the Salon were in the style of Romanticism. This painting is showing the real life of the contemporary rural area where was unfamiliar with the bourgeois. It prompted to a debate as visitors were shocked by the reveal of unusual characteristics of social commitment and ugliness of the real people. Courbet was given with a gold medal because of this painting, it resulted that he needed not to submit his paintings to the Salon jury.

  This painting is scrupulous. Every corner of the room is detailedly depicted, either the men’ clothes or the paper on the floor. The composition is harmonious and nothing is abrupt in this painting. In my opinion, the first sight of this painting was dark and without any focal point. After admiring it for few times, I was truly impressed by the skills of the painter and gazed into the unreadable background.

The reason of gaining fame of this painting was it revealed what French dominated class refused to know. They sought for ideal country and exotic scene. They did not accept the imperfect society and the real life of the working class. They agreed that art should be controlled by the upper class. However, this painting swayed their status in the Academy and forced them to accept the truth. The truth was cruel but brought the new understanding to the others in the field of painting. Realism is not only a style of art or literature, and also an innovation of the society.

     To summarize, realism was an important change in the 19^th century. It did not influence the French artist only, but the whole Europe. Though After Dinner at Ornans is not as famous as The Studio or The Stonebreaker, it was the painting that Courbet gained the acknowledgement from the Salon. Realism is not only a style, it is also a criticism of the society.

Reference:

Gustave-Courbet.com, “After Dinner at Ornans, 1848 by Gustave Courbet”, http://www.gustave-courbet.com/after-dinner-at-ornans.jsp#prettyPhoto

James Malpas, Realism (Movements in Modern Art series), (USA: Tate Publishing, 1997)

Michael Fried, ‘Painter into Painting: An After Dinner at Ornans and The Stonebreakers’ in Courbet’s Realism, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 85-95.

Ross Finocchio, "Nineteenth-Century French Realism", in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rlsm/hd_rlsm.htm (accessed on February 15, 2015)

Stephen Eisenman, "The Rhetoric of Realism: Courbet and the Origins of the Avant-Garde," in Stephen Eisenman, Nineteenth Century Art, 212-220

Web Gallery of Art, “Courbet, Gustave – After Dinner at Ornans”, Web Gallery of Art, http://www.wga.hu/html_m/c/courbet/1/courb102.html

何政廣，《世界名畫家全集－庫爾貝 寫實主義大師》，河北：河北教育出版社，2001年。

Notes on Presentation

• Description of the painting ( painter, year, size)
• Brief introduction of the painting
• Introduction to Realism
• The composition of the painting and how it fits Realism
• Question: Most of the earliest realist paintings by Courbet were life-sized paintings, including this one, what will it change if this work turns into a smaller size instead of a large-scale composition?