The emergence of realism as an art movement, and modernism and the avantgarde which follow this movement is the subject matter of the chapter from “Nineteenth Century Art- A Critical History”; “The Rhetoric of Realism: Courbet and the Origins of the Avant-Garde”. The group of writers, poets, thinkers and painters that belonged to Post-Romantic generation, some of which are Flaubert, Baudelaire, Daumier, Millet, Courbet, are the first artists who described themselves as Realists. The corresponding historical era is the 1848 Revolution, which is celebrated with a great xeal by Marx and socialists after the disillusionment of the French Revolution of 1789 which could not provide the equality it had promised to the society. The paintings by Daumier, Millet, and specifically Courbet depict the effects of realism with new agents of society represented in their paintings−lower-class people−, the emphasis on the decoration of interiors and clothing styles that belonged to the “fashion” of that age, depiction of flesh-and-blood human and animal body accompanying by an ability to include some air of sacredness. In England, as well, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood formed in 1848 shows a similiar style of represenation: In their paintings they appreciate the style of Classicals while representing the details of nature and materiality, yet they are far away from mannerism of later Raphael. Indeed, one may encounter a depiction of social reality, corruption of classes, and the constant questioning of the idealistic representations. “Woman” is no longer the idealistic representation of beauty and innocence as a passive actor, but with modernism she becomes the active agent of the corrupt society of the modernism. This era can be seen as the introduction of politics and sociology to the domain of artistic expression. No longer there remains artists−except for the artists that Louis Napoleon had hired to modify realism with conservatism−who are tied to an ideology, a state, a religion, or a moral doctrine. Even the notion of the “artist” altered its meaning, as Baudelaire argues in “The Painter of the Modern Life”. There remains no artists of Classical era whose speciality can be described more by craftsmanship than by art, beacuse first the moral, religious, political constraints are no longer determining factor of artistic representation; second, the quest of beauty in art has changed its direction from universal beauty to the cogent and partial beauty. For Baudelaire, the modern artist is the one who have some critical points directed to the society and the system, yet he are to see the slightest grain of beauty in the fashion among his contemporaries’ ordiary lives rather than to reject all as a whole to appreciate the modern world, to be a person of the world or flaneur rather than an artist, and contribute to the progress of draining art from the “now”, i.e. the contemporary fashion of ordinary life.
BESTE GÜN ASLAN 