Wilhelm Leibl Three woman in church 1882

Paul McCarthy, That girl TG awake, 2012-13

Giovani Bellini, La Vierge et l’Enfant avec quatre Saints ou Retable de San Zaccaria, 1505

Gisant de la Duchesse d’Alençon, Dreux, Charles Albert Walhain, c.1900

Wilhelm Leibl, Die Dorfpolitiker (Bauern im Gespräch), 1877

Honoré Daunimier, Les baigneurs, 1840-41

Fernand Cormon, Caïn fuyant avec sa famille, 1880

Honoré Daunimier, Les baigneuses, 1840-41

William Adolphe Bouguereau, Les petites mendiantes, 1890

Realism in the 19th Century
Styles and Subjects

Jules Bastien-Lepage, Jeanne d’Arc, 1879

Sir Hubert von Herkomer, On strike, 1891

The child of triumphant Positivism

The July Revolution ushered in the positivist and bourgeois phase of the 19th century: it was the time for pragmatism, for the tangible and the demonstrable.

The first and second parts will consider the conditions under which realism is possible in relation to Platonic and post-structuralist philosophies.

The third and fourth will map the new criteria that modernity imposes on artists, their successes and failures.

View the conference

Realism in the 19th Century Styles and Subjects

Realism in the 19th Century
Styles and Subjects