Gustave Courbet

What is realism? According to Peter Brooks, realism can take up various forms: realism as the visual, or realism as the ordinary aspects of life, or realism as the ugliest aspects of life, as long the message is conveyed. Which message? That of reality. What is reality then? “We have a thirst for reality, which is curious, since we have too much reality, more than we can bear.” (Brooks, 1). Do we in fact crave reality that much? But then as he explains, what we crave is not actually reality.…

One of the leading artists in the Impressionist movement, Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born on May 22, 1844, in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. She was born and growing in a comfortably upper-middle-class family: her mother belonged to a prosperous banking family, and her father was well-to-do real estate and stockbroker. Her elementary schooling prepared her to be a proper wife and mother, included such classes like embroidery, music, homemaking, painting and sketching. Her upbringing reflected her…