Romantic Era

 Art Nouveau and Realist

Art Nouveau

I have chosen to do my comparison with Art Nouveau and Realist. I find something interesting in the Art Nouveau Artworks where Realist I am not too fond of. 

My first two pieces will be from Gustav Klimt. I have chosen him for his unique style. After almost dieing myself both of these paintings bring to me important things. Death, the circle of life, and making it through the stages of life. 

This painting Is called Death and Life by Gustav Klimt in 1910/1911 a couple years before the world was set on fire by the Great War. This painting is kept in the Leopold Museum. This painting brings something we all think about death. The painting on the left is very dark a skeleton armed with a club that is approaching the people holding onto themselves while almost grinning, waiting for them to open their eyes. 

On the right side is life. It has naked body parts that alternate with beautiful almost quilt-like colored decoration or ornamation. Every age group is represented.  There is a mother with her young child, a pair of lovers, and an old woman. Which shows a symbolism of life. They lay there and don't open their eyes while death is near. Like to ignore it. But also like they are looking within. For strength? Bond of each other holding them together? Or accepting their fate? Death might be able to come in and take life itself, but humanity as a whole though will always be able to elude his grasp. The contrast provides the impression that the presented characters in the painting are good and bad. Now this painting definitely brings out the deep emotions I have when thinking that death is always knocking at the door waiting for your time. 

This stunning painting is called The Three Stages of Woman and was painted by Gustav Klimt in 1905 with oil on canvas. Klimt's vision is rooted in the relationship between erotic power and the fatality of death. To me, there is something elegant in this painting. It brings the cycle of life. There is three figures in three different stages of life. The woman on the left looks very realistic and kind of expressive style. It is very different in contrast to the other two figures and backgrounds. The old age of the woman on the left is portrayed with beautiful accuracy and with careful detail. She stands with her head bowed and seems ready for her fate. Yet beside her is a young woman wrapped in a veil, you can tell she is happy from her face and maybe joyful of her age and life. She looks like a seductive woman. She looks like a young mother in her prime. She is heavily stylized with wavy hair and curvy soft shapes and strong contours of her body. Yet in her arms is a sleeping baby. Who looks much like her beautiful mother and seems happy, the mother supports her young child in a loving embrace. The background is dark and black, which is rare in Klimt's works. There is also a little gold and bronze./ The ornamental motifs around the two figures have different qualities. They reinforce the conflict one has between old age and death, represented by dark spots and the youth and child characterized by softer and delicate colors. There is light and dark in the background. The decorative circles are reminiscent of cells, maybe it could be an ova, but for sure it's a representative symbol of life and energy, while the black brings with it death. This brings out an emotional feeling of life and to not take if for granted.

I feel Gustav Klimt's message with his works is trying to light the cycle of life. We all come into life naked, we die naked and we all go through it and each stage has its own beauty.

Realist

This painting is called The Stone Breakers by Gustave Courbet. It was painted in 1849. Unlike my first two paintings which don't look realistic this painting Courbet wanted to show what was "real", so he painted two men doing real men's work. His Stonebreakers represented workers, as he had seen them, in monumental form.  Realism was a broad cultural movement in the 19th century that had its origin in literature and philosophy. In painting, its most prominent representative was actually Gustave Courbet. This painting it shows one man too old for back-breaking hard labor and one too young, which in turn shows the hardship and the exhaustion that the men endured at the time. Courbet made use of great line work, color, and composition but his brushwork is a little rough in this painting. This brings on the emotions of hardships and I feel that these guys are a slave to their work. 

The Stonebreakers was actually destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1945, and was one of his best works. 

This painting is called Woman in Waves by French realism painter Gustave Courbet in 1868. It is painted in oil on canvas 25 3/4 in x 21 1/4 in. It is now stored in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This painting is very realistic and you can see the different tones of her skin and the underarm hair. Between 1864 and 1868 Courbet took on a series of female nude paintings. This was actually painted at Pont-Aven in Northwest France, she seems to be throwing herself into the sea which at the time is a metaphor for a modern European woman who is forsaking civilization and going to abandon herself to the most natural instinct, primal. Courbet is considered a Symbolist. He makes sure to use soft color tones and curvy and gentle lines. This makes me feel very feminine and that you should always feel good in your skin. This would be a neat one to have in the bedroom at home. 

I think the message Gustave Courbet is trying to say is his art insists on the physical reality of things that he has observed and wants to bring them to light. Like the two men old and young still a slaves to their work in both stages of life. He wants to bring out the truth to his paintings.

Death and Life, 1908 by Gustav Klimt, www.gustav-klimt.com/Death-And-Life.jsp. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.