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Editor's Notes

1. Realism began in Britain and France, where industrial and political revolutions had recently taken place. Goya’s painting captures the Spanish resistance to Napoleon, who under the initial guise of aiding Spain, instead occupied Spain in 1808; this led to the Second of May uprising, a rebellion by the people of Madrid, and the execution of Spaniards by the French a day later (depicted in this painting). The painting is poignant in its realism and focus on an execution rather than valor or victory in war. The image is a painting titled The Third of May (1814) by Francisco de Goya. Prado Museum, Madrid.
2. Realist writers wanted to write fiction that reveals truths about the world, to observe social life unsentimentally and to convey it objectively, now focusing on new subject matter related to the rise of democracy, the middle class, the Industrial Revolution, and working-class issues. They routinely chose the city over the countryside, and provided detailed description of squalid surroundings. Religion, symbolism, and allegory are largely absent; instead the focus is on sensory experience and the observable world. The idea of “beauty” transformed as ugliness and the hideous were recognized as appropriate subjects for art works. The painting is titled The Stonebreakers (1848) by Gustave Courbet. A realist painter, Courbet’s work put working-class people and their lifestyles into the limelight, which was a break from previous modes of painting, in which idyllic, mythical, and religious groups or aristocratic and political movements were featured.
3. For writers wanting to capture the whole social world in an objective style, the use of ordinary language and omniscient third-person narrator provided the perfect, impersonal perspective. Other writers opted for first-person narrators, guided only by their own senses and experience. Elements of character and plot raised challenges and opportunities as writers tried to stay clear of sensational events and neat endings, which compromised the idea of “unvarnished truth telling.” Dramatic interest lay in having the character make a difficult choice or be faced with an ethical dilemma. Questions included: Can individuals have an impact on unjust social relationships? What responsibility does a person have toward others in a city, nation, or his own family?
4. A later offshoot of realism, called naturalism, turned to Charles Darwin for a model: human beings would only survive to the extent that they could adapt to their social environments; additionally, human behavior and choice could largely be defined by biochemical reactions in the body and brain rather than be based on a soul or higher thought process. During this period, some thinkers also perverted Darwin’s theories by introducing the kernels of racial profiling and assumptions that people of different ethnic background possessed physical and mental characteristics that gave them better advantages for adapting to social situations. The photograph of Charles Darwin was likely taken by Maull and Foxx (1859).
5. Degas’s portrait, titled Place de la Concorde (1875), marks an important revelation: photography had started to trump painting because it was more “real” and could capture natural rather than contrived or fictitious scenes. In this painting, Degas proves that a painting can be just as realistic as a photograph—students will notice, for example, that the painting is not centered, that the figures are not facing forward and are not shown in full profile.