# Realism and Impressionism

History I · Art and History · https://tryals.app/learn/history-i/realism-and-impressionism

## The Hierarchy and Its Enemies

By 1800 the French Académie ranked art strictly: **History painting** (myth, scripture) was Rank 1. **Still life** (fruit) was Rank 5, barely art. The Salon jury enforced this.

| Rank | Genre | Status |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **History painting** | Only serious art |
| 5 | **Still life** | Fruit, barely art |

**Courbet detonated the hierarchy in 1850.** **A Burial at Ornans** showed a village funeral at the massive scale reserved for kings. Nothing was idealized: **Pitfall** — critics raged not at the peasants, but that ordinary life claimed royal scale.

## Perception Over Object

Manet flattened modelling in **Déjeuner sur l'herbe** (1863), keeping the canvas an assertive **painted surface**. Nude goddesses were fine; a naked Parisian looking back was a scandal.

**Impressionism** (1874) made **light** the true subject. Monet painted Rouen Cathedral thirty times at different hours; the cathedral was just what the **light** fell on.

**En plein air** painting outdoors was sped by the 1841 metal paint tube. **Distinction** — photography (1839) took likeness, forcing painting to pursue pure perception.

## Practice questions

9 of this lesson's 14 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Why did *A Burial at Ornans* scandalise the Salon when its subject, a village funeral, was entirely ordinary?

A. A village funeral painted at history-painting scale
B. It was the first painting exhibited outside the Salon
C. It depicted a religious ceremony without a priest
D. It used photography as a direct source

**Answer:** A. A village funeral painted at history-painting scale

**Why:** Scale carried rank. By giving provincial mourners a coronation-sized canvas, Courbet argued in the Académie’s own grammar that ordinary life deserved the space of kings. The jury understood him perfectly, that is why they were furious.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/realism-and-impressionism/why-did-a-burial-at-ornans-scandalise-the-salon-when-its-subject-a

### 2. Sort each practice: **academic method** or **Impressionist method**?

**Answer:**

- Academic method: Finished in the studio from preparatory drawings, Brushwork blended invisibly smooth, Shadows rendered in black and brown
- Impressionist method: Painted outdoors in front of the motif, Visible, unblended strokes left on the surface, Shadows built from complementary colors

**Why:** Every academic rule has its Impressionist inversion, and each inversion follows from one decision: paint the light while it is still there.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/realism-and-impressionism/sort-each-practice-academic-method-or-impressionist-method

### 3. Impressionism's outdoor painting depended on two industrial products: collapsible metal paint tubes and railway timetables. Why do those matter more than they sound?

A. They allowed artists to reach exhibitions in other cities more easily
B. They reduced the cost of painting, allowing artists of modest means to work
C. They improved pigment quality, giving the brighter colours the style is known for
D. They made it practical to finish a canvas outdoors in one sitting

**Answer:** D. They made it practical to finish a canvas outdoors in one sitting

**Why:** Ground pigment in a bladder could not travel and studio work cannot catch a passing hour, so the tube and the train are preconditions for the subject itself. Renoir said flatly that without paint in tubes there would have been no Impressionism, the style's ambition was waiting on a manufacturing change.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/realism-and-impressionism/impressionisms-outdoor-painting-depended-on-two-industrial-products

### 4. Why was the nude in Manet’s _Déjeuner sur l’herbe_ found intolerable when nude goddesses were not?

A. She is a contemporary Parisian who returns the viewer’s gaze
B. Nudity had been formally banned from the Salon that year
C. The figure was larger than life size
D. She was painted from a photograph rather than a live model

**Answer:** A. She is a contemporary Parisian who returns the viewer’s gaze

**Why:** A goddess is a permitted fiction; a naked woman in 1863 Paris who has _noticed you looking_ implicates the viewer. Manet removed the mythological alibi and left the audience holding it.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/realism-and-impressionism/why-was-the-nude-in-manets-dejeuner-sur-lherbe-found-intolerable

### 5. 'Impressionism' began as a hostile reviewer's insult before the painters adopted it.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** True. Louis Leroy's 1874 review mocked Monet's *Impression, Sunrise*, and the group took the name. Adopting a critic's insult is a recurring pattern, and it usually marks the moment a loose association accepts that it is a movement.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/realism-and-impressionism/impressionism-began-as-a-hostile-reviewers-insult-before-the

### 6. What conditions made painting outdoors practical for the Impressionists?

A. Collapsible metal paint tubes (from 1841) made pigment portable
B. Pre-mixed commercial paints removed studio grinding
C. Electric lighting let them work after sunset in the field
D. Rail travel put the countryside within a day’s reach

**Answer:** A. Collapsible metal paint tubes (from 1841) made pigment portable; B. Pre-mixed commercial paints removed studio grinding; D. Rail travel put the countryside within a day’s reach

**Why:** A tube, a shop, and a train, the revolution had a supply chain. Electric field lighting is anachronistic, and would have missed the point anyway: the whole subject was daylight moving.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/realism-and-impressionism/what-conditions-made-painting-outdoors-practical-for-the

### 7. Order these moments in nineteenth-century painting.

**Answer:**

1. Photography announced to the public (1839)
2. The collapsible metal paint tube patented (1841)
3. Courbet’s Burial at Ornans scandalizes the Salon (1850–51)
4. Manet’s Déjeuner shown at the Salon des Refusés (1863)
5. First independent Impressionist exhibition (1874)

**Why:** Two technologies, then two scandals, then a secession. Photography took documentation away, and the tube let painters walk out of the studio, the revolt had causes before it had a manifesto.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/realism-and-impressionism/order-these-moments-in-nineteenth-century-painting

### 8. Complete the account of painting’s response to photography.

**Answer:** After 1839, **photography** took over the work of documentation and likeness. Painting could compete on accuracy and lose, or pursue what only paint could do: sensation. The Impressionists chose the second path, making the **light** striking an object their true subject, and leaving the **brushstroke** visible on the surface rather than blending it away.

**Why:** A machine took the job of copying appearances, and painting was freed, or forced, to ask what else it was for. Every modernist move for the next century runs through that fork.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/realism-and-impressionism/complete-the-account-of-paintings-response-to-photography

### 9. Rank the Académie’s genres from most prestigious to least.

**Answer:**

1. History painting (myth, scripture, antiquity)
2. Portraiture
3. Genre scenes of everyday life
4. Landscape
5. Still life

**Why:** Gods at the top, fruit at the bottom. The whole hierarchy assumed art’s job was moral instruction through elevated subjects, which is exactly the assumption Courbet blew up.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/realism-and-impressionism/rank-the-academies-genres-from-most-prestigious-to-least