ROMANTICISM and REALISM

ROMANTICISM:

The image on the right is from the romanticism era. Called The Nightmare, it is a 1781 oil painting by Henry Fuseli.
There are many interpretations about this painting. The canvas seems to portray simultaneously a dreaming woman and the content of her nightmare. The incubus and the horse's head refer to contemporary belief and folklore about nightmares, but have been ascribed more specific meanings by some theorists. Contemporary critics were taken aback by the overt sexuality of the painting, which has since been interpreted by some scholars as anticipating Freudian ideas about the subconscious. (source wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare).




The picture on the right is called The Kiss and was painted by Francesco Hayez. It tells the story about a Risorgimento patriot, saying goodbye to his wife before going to war.

I love how he used dark colours to give it that more of a real feeling as if it was a photograph that was being taken.

REALISM:

The painting below is called Mr Henry Clay Pierce created by Anders Zorn, and was painted in 1899. My interpretation of this painting is that Anders wanted to show the real life that people live and that getting a picture of yourself painted in your room with reasonably dark lighting was as real as it was going to get and not getting painted in a seemingly magical forest or on a moonlit balcony with a million stars lighting up the sky.

The painting on the right is called Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet, and was painted by Gustave Courbet in 1854. To me, I feel like the artist just wanted to show a normal day in his life meeting two friends along the way. I also noticed that he made it more real by using natural colours and not bright colours where there shouldn't be any.