Description
[Modern] In his review of the1846 Paris Salon, Charles Baudelaire asked if there were any artists capable of creating a truly modern art, one that represented contemporary life and manners. He was echoing a concern expressed by artists such as Honoré Daumier, who had declared just a few years earlier, “Il faut être de son temps” (one must be of one’s time). The Realist Movement of the mid-19th century was a response to such concerns. The Impressionist Movement, which followed in its wake, raised important questions about the relationship between art and nature, perception and reality, the nature of reality itself. In all cases, be they Realists or Impressionists, artists sought to free themselves from academic formulas, the ready-made solutions to the problems of art, in order to follow their personal visions and create artistic metaphors for reality as they experienced it.