Romanticism and Realism: Delacroix, Courbet, Millet

Revolt Against Reason

The 19th century begins with a revolt against the Enlightenment. The reason that the 18th century worshipped brought revolutionary terror, Napoleonic wars, and industrial exploitation. Romanticism is a reaction: not reason, but feeling; not order, but elemental force; not classical harmony, but untamed nature. This is a shift from the objective to the subjective, from the universal to the individual.

Romanticism: Elemental Force and the Hero

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) is the leader of French Romanticism. "Liberty Leading the People" (1830) is an allegory of the July Revolution. A bare-breasted woman with a tricolour flag leads insurgents across the barricades. This is not a realistic scene—this is an emotional image. Delacroix mixes real participants of the revolution with allegory: a combination of historical document and political myth.

His painting is expressive, with dynamic brushstrokes and saturated colours. In contrast to David, who built through line and geometry, Delacroix builds through colour and movement. This would become the program for the Impressionists.

Théodore Géricault (1791–1824) paints "The Raft of the Medusa" (1818–1819)—the catastrophe of a frigate in 1816. 149 people were abandoned on a raft; 15 survived. Géricault studied the bodies of drowned people, took anatomical consultations. The huge canvas (5 × 7 m) unfolds as a pyramid of despair: the dead below, survivors at the top, waving a rag. On the horizon—a ship that does not see them.

This is a political painting about the incompetence of the royal authorities. It was exhibited at the Salon of 1819 and caused a scandal. Géricault died at 32—after falling from a horse. "The Raft of the Medusa" remains a symbol of Romanticism.

Realism: Truth Without Embellishment

In the 1850s, Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) attacks Romanticism from another flank: not lofty feelings and historical allegories, but contemporary real life "as it is." "A Burial at Ornans" (1849–1850) depicts a village funeral, 50 life-sized figures, ordinary people. The Academy was outraged: such dimensions were intended for historical and religious paintings, not for village scenes.

Courbet openly declared himself a realist—his manifesto of 1855 for his personal exhibition, which he organized next to the official Exhibition. "Realism is democracy in art," he said.

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) chose a different subject: peasant labor. "The Gleaners" (1857)—three women picking up leftovers after harvest. This is the biblical tradition (Ruth 2:2), but Millet turns it not into a religious but a social painting. Bent figures, hard work, dignity in poverty. The painting was perceived as a threat: "red" painting, a socialist message.

Van Gogh would idolize Millet. Van Gogh's "The Sower" (1888) is a direct dialogue with Millet's "The Sower" (1850). Continuity across half a century.

Orientalism and the "Gaze" at the Other

An important theme of the 19th century is Orientalism: European artists depicting the Middle East and North Africa. Delacroix visited Morocco (1832); his "Women of Algiers" (1834) is an attempt to depict what he saw. But this is the gaze of a European at the "exotic."

Edward Said in "Orientalism" (1978) showed that this is not a neutral depiction, but a construction of the "Other": sensual, irrational, passive—in contrast to the "rational" West. 19th-century Orientalist painting is a document of colonial imagination.

The 19th Century and Corporate Art

Courbet did something radical for his time: he organized his own exhibition, bypassing state control. This was the prototype of the independent art market. Until the 19th century, the artist worked on commission—for the aristocracy, Church, kings. In the 19th century, a new customer appears: the bourgeois buyer, the new middle class. Art became a market commodity.

This meant a change of power. Now the artist could work for the "public," not for a particular patron. The Impressionists are the next step in this logic: to sell directly through galleries, without the mediation of the Academy.

Question for Reflection: The realists of the 19th century made politics through their choice of subject—they depicted the poor, labor, invisible people. How do you choose whom to "make visible" in your work? Whose stories does your organization tell, and whose does it silence?