Question 7: What happens to Realism while using an abstract formal scheme?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n As the caricature by Honor\u00e9 Daumier suggests, a \u201cBattle of Schools \u2013 Realism versus Classic Idealism<\/i>\u201d was waged already before Manet created his version of realism.<\/p>\n Figure 1:\u00a0 \u00a0Battle of Schools \u2013 Realism versus Classic Idealism<\/em> In this battle, the realists developed new styles of painting in opposition to traditional academic conventions, The philosopher and anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – Courbet\u2019s friend whom he portrayed \u2013 is quoted as saying: \u201cAny figure, whether beautiful or ugly, can fulfil the ends of art\u201d \u201cRealism, without being a defence of the ugly or evil, has the right to show what exists and what one sees.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Manet – himself from the upper middle class – supported all his life the republican cause, although the political revolutions and wars of his time (Manet is a contemporary of Karl Marx) are reflected only in few of his works. Unfortunately, Manet never articulated his own understanding of realism, so we rely on his pictures to reconstruct his concept of realistic painting. In art history, however, at least since John Rewald\u2019s The History of Impressionism<\/em> (1946), Manet is usually regarded as an impressionist or at least as bridging between realism and impressionism. Impressionism is seen as the new stage of realism based on scientific insights: on the rapidly growing disciplines of physiology and psychology and their application to understanding modern urban life and the nature of visual experience. So, what is Manet\u2019s realism and how does it differ from impressionism? Figure 2: What is realism? Comparing Caillebotte, Monet and Manet Interestingly, I found the most convincing argument not by art historians (not yet?) but in the history of the philosophy of science. Here, Daston and Galison (2007) researched the meaning of the concept of objectivity<\/em><\/strong> in natural science since about 1600 \u2013 the time of Diego Velazquez. From the start, they had the problem that in reality each object of a certain kind, say, an orchid or butterfly, was a little different from the other. There were accidental variations and the natural scientist had to advise the artist which deviations were relevant, and which were not<\/em>. The terms of objectivity and subjectivity, in this sense, were introduced only later. (I recommend to read the fascinating story how the meaning in philosophy completely reversed!) But in science and philosophy things changed around the beginning of the 19th<\/sup> century: But then, in the early 19th<\/sup> century, a number of developments interacted and shattered this view. \u201cWhat exists\u201d (objectively) and \u201cwhat one sees\u201d (subjectively) drifted conceptually apart!<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n In science, In art, But what about Manet?<\/p>\n The railway bridge appears only at the right edge of the painting; a perspective into the picture is barred by an iron grill and hidden in white smoke, presumably from a passing train; in the centre and forefront, we find two people – a woman and and girl – who strangely command our attention, as we, the viewers, seem to have disturbed the woman reading . We are very close, but the woman is not really looking at us. The girl is holding on to an iron railing looking into the white smoke barring the background from view\u00a0 as the railing barres her (and us) from moving back toward the railroad. We are together “boxed in” in the foreground not really looking at each other and seeing little beyond the railing. Just as the concepts of objectivity and subjectivity have changed, the term realism changes and still changes \u2013 just think of modern hyperrealism. His realism aims at “what exists” but may not be “seen” readily: So, Manet\u2019s realism consists \u2013 in MyManet<\/em> \u2013 on \u201cshowing what exists<\/i><\/b>\u201d in the situation of painting. At this point, I just want to link his realism again to the puppet theatre. As we have seen, the production of \u201creasoned images\u201d required a close cooperation between the scientist and the artist. Unlike a theatre performance with writers, directors, and actors, each with their own agendas, the puppeteer is in command over the production. Like the scientist cooperates with the artist, the painter has, however, to cooperate with the model to sustain the social form he wants to present in the painting. <\/i> \u201cReasoned images\u201d are not merely formal compositions of abstract \u201cstructural elements\u201d. So, see you next week!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Manet’s realism interpreted as “reasoned imagination”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199326225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[225364],"tags":[214337,160882,62245,76738,748385128,44111],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-manet","tag-impressionism","tag-naturalism","tag-philosophy-of-science","tag-realism","tag-reasoned-imagination","tag-visualization"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nby Honor\u00e9 Daumier (1855)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mymanet.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Daumier-Battles-3-300x214.png\")
<\/p>\n
\nchoosing topics from modern life and contemporary landscapes rather than from history and mythology,
\nand siding with the political goals of workers and peasants in the new republic.<\/p>\n
\nand the poet Desnoyers added (cited in Rewald 1961, p. 28):<\/p>\n
\nAs mentioned before, his friend Edmond Duranty revitalized the tradition of puppet theatre in the early 1860ies with realism as a framework for art, public education, and entertainment.
\nRealism, thus, had a distinct ethical and political dimension.<\/p>\n
\nTo make things even more complicated, his painter friends and followers \u2013 Frederic Bazille, Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, and others – developed into the school of impressionism<\/em><\/strong>.
\nThey saw him as their mentor and leader, but Manet never called himself an impressionist and did not exhibit with the impressionists.<\/p>\n
\nRobert Herbert (1988, p.33) counts Manet among the impressionists and both under naturalism, since Manet like the others paints his impressions of Parisian life.
\nMichael L\u00fcthy (2003, p.73ff) rejects this view and insists that Manet is not <\/em><\/strong>an impressionist and misunderstood as realist, at least in the sense of naturalism.<\/p>\n
\nAfter all, there is a world of differences between Gustave Caillebotte and Claude Monet (for a comparison: Herbert 1988, p.20-32). Does Manet fit somewhere in between?<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mymanet.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Manet-Caillebotte-Monet-300x211.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nTheir examples are visualizations of natural objects for research purposes. Natural scientists and artists were cooperating in depicting objects like botanic plants, animals, or the surface of the earth.
\nTheir goal was truth-to-nature<\/em><\/strong> in drawing or etching objects like they really are, or naturalism<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n
\nTruth-to-nature did not mean to show an \u201cideal\u201d flower; it simply meant that there is a general type which \u201cexists\u201d while variations just happen. Moreover, it was common practice to show the blossom and the fruits of a given flower on the same<\/em> depicted plant, although this image could clearly not<\/em> \u201cexist\u201d in reality.
\nAgain, the scientist decided what to show and what not and the artist showed a \u201creasoned image<\/em><\/strong>\u201d (p.42).
\nThe image was objective because it showed what the scientist knew to \u201cexist\u201d.
\n<\/i><\/b>If the artist got it wrong, these deviations were only subjective errors<\/i><\/b>, as every knowledgeable person could \u201csee\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nFor our understanding of Manet, it is sufficient to recognize that this original meaning of \u201ctrue-to-nature\u201d persisted in the concept of naturalism in art.
\nWhile naturalism would only show what can be “seen”, realism would show what science claimed to “exist”.<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0subjectivity<\/em> acquired the meaning of \u201cexisting according to theory\u201d or \u201cuniversal forms of experience\u201d;
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0objectivity<\/em> referred to \u201cmerely empirical sensations\u201d or \u201cmerely objective nature\u201d.
\nThus, the meaning of the terms changed completely!
\nHowever, there was no basic problem with understanding that abstract schemes are realized in our subjective ways to perceive the world. Following the philosopher Immanuel Kant, we all use subjective schemata which enable us to \u201csee\u201d what \u201cexists\u201d.
\nArtists like Courbet could show what exists realistically, while scientist could rely on their senses observing phenomena and discovering theories.<\/p>\n
\nPolitical, economic, technological, and social revolutions \u2013 the transition to modernity \u2013 impacted on society.
\nAn important effect was an increasing individualism<\/em> <\/b>supporting concepts of subjectivity linked to\u00a0 individual freedom and capacity to reason.
\nThat was welcomed in art:
\nThe transition lead to the idea of \u201cart for art\u2019s sake\u201d or the autonomy of art, and to the expression of the artist\u2019s freedom and subjectivity<\/em> in art.
\nThe effect in science was ambiguous. Enhanced subjectivity strengthened the scientific self, but it also resulted in increasing awareness of the ways subjectivity interfered with objective science<\/em>. Especially, research in physiology and psychology demonstrated how researchers themselves were prone to misperceptions and bias.<\/p>\n
\nmethods were adopted which produced \u201cobjective images<\/em><\/strong>\u201d, images as independent as possible from any interference by humans, both scientist and artists. The paradigmatic case is photography, which to some extent substituted the artist\u2019s drawings and engravings. Objective procedures were introduced which, in effect, controlled scientific subjectivity by rational rigor on the level of observation, measurement, and visualization (“what one sees”) as well as on the level of theory construction (“what is known to exist”).<\/p>\n
\nthe new insights of physiology and psychology – research on the perception of light and colour, for instance – \u00a0sparked a new awareness for the appearance<\/em><\/strong> of the world (\u201cwhat one sees\u201d), both in landscape painting and in the depiction of contemporary urban life. Impressionism, and later expressionism, can be understood in part as an exploitation of the results<\/em> of this natural research, while, at the same time, claiming the full freedom for the expression of artistic subjectivity – Impressionism seen as new naturalism.
\nBoth, Caillebotte with his exaggeration of perspective in modern urban planning and the presentation of fashionable people on the bridge, and Monet by showing the elusive play of light on the same bridge,\u00a0will count as impressionists in this sense.<\/p>\n
\nUnlike the scenes of Caillebotte and Monet, who present to us their subjective view of\u00a0 urban life, Manet’s scene is strangely “staged”. He makes the viewer “step back” to look at the scene more objectively by the tension created between spatial closeness and social distancing by the woman’s avoidance of a direct gaze.
\nIs this naturalism depicting a certain scene? Or impressionism of \u201cwhat one sees\u201d? Or realism of \u201cwhat exists\u201d? In what sense, is Manet the realist he claims to be?<\/p>\n
\nSo, we have to ask what the realistic concern was for Manet at the time.
\nHe did not want to depict every detail. In the spirit of the tradition of drawing and engraving, he opted for simplicity<\/em><\/strong> and concentration on the essential elements with sincerity<\/i><\/b>.
\nManet practiced printing techniques himself and used extensively engravings rather than the originals of Old Masters as examples \u2013 like in Luncheon.
\nHe extracted \u201cstructural elements\u201d \u2013 as L\u00fcthy describes it \u2013 and combined them in own compositions.
\nWe have already identified some of these elements:
\nthe narrow \u201cstage\u201d, the violation of perspective, the implication of a space before the painting by gazes toward the viewer, the flattening of figures and elements by direct light from the front eliminating modelling and shading, the arrangement of somewhat isolated elements and shapes, the collage character of the composition.
\nRealism in a narrow naturalistic sense presenting \u201cwhat one sees\u201d is clearly not his goal.<\/p>\n
\nManet is focusing on \u201cseeing others and being seen by others<\/b>\u201d, which in a social situation is a very real<\/strong> phenomenon!
\n<\/em>The \u201cstructural elements\u201d are elements of social forms<\/b><\/em> which Manet presents just like the engravings in natural science, <\/em>like\u00a0combining the essential elements of a flower regardless of whether they can be observed in natural settings in exactly this way. His accent is on the more abstract forms which “exist” in a certain kind of situation rather then in the accidental aspects of “what one can see” in a specific case.
\nManet creates \u201creasoned images<\/em><\/strong>\u201d of painting as a social situation with interrelating gazes.
\nThe figures and scenes appear somehow arrested, because Manet wants to capture them in an essential configuration, not in the fleeting, subjectively experienced moment characteristic for impressionism or in the accidental \u201cfreeze\u201d of a photography producing \u201cobjective images untouched by human hands\u201d but typically full of irrelevant elements.<\/p>\n
\nHis special focus is on the configuration of real<\/em> gazes and gestures relating persons. These configurations will change with the setting depicted, so we should expect variations in other paintings than Luncheon on the Grass<\/em> – as the example of The Railway<\/em> above shows.
\nThe composition of the painting will not produce a naturalistic image of \u201cwhat anyone can see\u201d, but the composition of a \u201creasoned image\u201d of essential elements incorporating insight into “what one knows”. Still, Manet is a realistic painter<\/em> and not illustrating science. We have to come back to the difference between realism in art and in science.<\/p>\n
\nTherefore, it is not surprising
\n– that Manet had his quarrels with professional models and their \u201cunrealistic\u201d poses at the art academy,
\n– that he preferred to use the same models which were able and patient to realize a \u201creasoned imagination\u201d,
\nand
\n– that he apparently had a great respect for his models and their dignity even if they were waitresses in a bar.
\nThis social empathy he shared with Velazquez and it qualified him as a social leader of his own circle of painter friends.
\n(Feminist art historians have a lot of criticism for male artists (not only) of the time – like Courbet or Degas and their treatment of models – they are remarkably restrained in the case of Manet.)<\/p>\n
\nThey claim to show reality or content<\/em> of real life.
\nThe new realism in literature of Baudelaire and Zola claims the same.
\nThe puppet theatre makes the same claim.
\nWe have to follow up on this aspect of content<\/em> in Manet\u2019s paintings.<\/p>\n