Gustave Courbet - A Real Realist

Gustave Courbet - After Dinner at Ornans - 1849 - Oil on canvas, 195 x 257 cm - Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille (click photo for larger image)French painter Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) challenged Romanticism so actively that he became the leader of the Realist movement. His aim was not to embellish or idealize reality--but to reproduce it accurately. In this regard, Courbet had a profound impact on Modern Art. He succeeded in avoiding what he believed were the artistic clichés, contrived idealism, and timeworn models of art. The work featured here--”After Dinner at Ornans”--is a large-scale composition that cemented Courbet’s reputation. Exhibited at the 1849 Salon, “After Dinner at Ornans” is set around a table in Caravaggesque fashion. It is a masterpiece of genre painting--and it won Courbet a gold medal that insured him exhibition rights at the Salon, without having to submit to a jurying process.

Wangechi Mutu: A Warrior Woman and Her "Warrior Women"

Wangechi Mutu, "Sit squat siamese", 2012, Collage on linoleum, 20" H x 18" W (50.8 cm H x 45.72 cm W), Photo Credit: Robert WedemeyerOne of the most dramatic artists to emerge from Africa in the past decade is Kenyan-born, Brooklyn-based artist Wangechi Mutu (born 1972). Mutu is best known for her elaborate collaged works on paper and Mylar polyester film.

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"Hopper Drawing"

Edward Hopper (1882–1967), Study for Nighthawks, 1941 or 1942. Fabricated chalk and charcoal on paper; 11 1/8 × 15 in. (28.3 × 38.1 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase and gift of Josephine N. Hopper by exchange  2011.65 (click photo for larger image)

"'Hopper Drawing' is the first major museum exhibition to focus on the drawings and creative process of Edward Hopper (1882–1967)."

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\From May 23rd to October 6th, 2013--the drawings will be on view at the Whitney Museum in New York. You can also explore the studies (which are remarkable) online.

Salon des Refuses

Édouard Manet - Luncheon on the Grass - 1862–1863 - Oil on canvas - 208 cm × 265.5 cm (81.9 in × 104.5 in) - Musée d'Orsay, Paris (click photo for larger image)In 1863, the Salon des Refuses, or rather the “exhibition of rejects,” was the first presentation of works that were rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon. Included in this landmark show was Édouard Manet’s famed painting, Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe, or Luncheon on the Grass. This painting shocked the French public due to the appearance of a female nude, casually seated with two fully-dressed men in a rural setting. The problem, however, wasn’t simply the nudity. If the setting had been historical or mythological, then this would have been fine. But the fact that the figures were contemporary was deemed unacceptable.

As early as the 1830s, Paris art galleries had mounted small-scale, private exhibitions of works rejected by the Salon jurors. The glamorous event of 1863 is the most significant, however, because it was actually sponsored by the French government.

This was a time when the art world was changing. The French Impressionists (inspired, in part, by Manet’s challenges to tradition) would soon emerge, as would the Post-Impressionists. It was the pre-dawn of Modernism.

Tate Britain Scraps Explanatory Panels Next to Works of Art

Tate Britain Gallery, London“Those wordy white panels telling visitors what paintings or installations mean have long been a controversial feature of the Tate galleries – often criticized but always there.” Now...they’re being eliminated!

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