Art In The 19th Century

The nineteenth century was a time of change in the artistic world. Artist started testing limits to see how they could introduce a whole new world of art. Some people considered the art to be a kind of culture shock and a scandalous way to express the artist talents. Scandalous is something that is considered improper, shocking, disgraceful, etc. (dictionary.com). There were three artist that really started this “scandalous” time period and they were Coubet, Daumier, and Manet. These three artist were willing to take extreme risks in order to take their artwork to the next level. They may have heard quite a bit of harsh words from people in the towns, but it was a risk worth taking. Courbet was a French realist painter who painted the Stone-Breakers, …show more content…
The reason being is because he came out with paintings in the nineteenth century that involved people without clothes on. This really pushed the boundaries further than any artist had ever gone, but it also brought art to a whole new level. In the painting called Olympia, it shows an African American maid handing flowers to a nude girl who is reclined one a chair/bed. What Manet did to make this picture seem even more scandalous is making the nude lady look somewhat seductive. He positioned her in a way to make it seem as if she is staring straight at you from the painting and he even adds a tie around the neck, some jewelry one her and some high heels shoes. Manet makes the subject of this picture scandalous by having this girl laying there looking like she is grabbing your heart and pulling the viewer into the picture. The painting is pretty obvious as to why it comes across as scandalous. The girl laying there in the nude is a pretty drastic culture shock to the people who viewed this at the time, because it was one of the first times that they had seen anything like it. Another reason is because the maid in the picture is an African American women serving what seems to be a pretty wealthy white girl, flowers. These paintings of his are an example of why the book called the art, “presented an unsettling challenge to the world of art” (PG. 308). The nineteenth century was on that really changed the world of art in more drastic measures than anyone could probably imagine. These three artists, Coubet, Daumier, and Manet were arguably some of the bravest artist that were around in this time period and wanted to do something in order to change the way art was presented. They showed great examples of real world issues by bringing realism into their pieces of art. They all brought human beings into their art work as