American realism - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

American realism was an early 20th century idea in art, music and literature that showed through these different types of work, reflections of the time period. Whether it was a cultural portrayal, or a scenic view of downtown New York City, these images and works of literature, music and painting depicted a contemporary view of what was happening; an attempt at defining what was real. In America at the beginning of the 20th century a new generation of painters, writers and journalists were coming of age. Many of the painters felt the influence of older American artists such as Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins

Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...

, Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...

, John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...

, James McNeill Whistler

James McNeill Whistler

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...

, Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....

, Childe Hassam

Childe Hassam

Frederick Childe Hassam was a prolific American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums...

, J. Alden Weir

J. Alden Weir

Julian Alden Weir was an American impressionist painter and member of the Cos Cob Art Colony near Greenwich, Connecticut...

, Thomas Pollock Anshutz

Thomas Pollock Anshutz

Thomas Pollock Anshutz was an American painter and teacher. Co-founder of The Darby School and leader at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Anshutz was known for his award winning portraiture work and working friendship with Thomas Eakins.-Personal life and education:Thomas Anshutz was born in...

, and William Merritt Chase

William Merritt Chase

William Merritt Chase was an American painter known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons The New School for Design.- Early life and training :He was born in Williamsburg , Indiana, to the family...

. However they were interested in creating new and more urbane works that reflected city life and a population that was more urban than rural in America as it entered the new century.

Introduction

During the late 19th century, and into the 20th century artists and musicians contributed to the idea of realism in the American setting. Each, though slightly different in concept or subject, was defining what was going on in front of his or her eyes, without imagining a past or a future. While it has been stated that American Realism was a Neoclassical

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

movement borrowing from ancient classical interpretations of art and architecture, this statement is false. American Realism was actually the opposite; instead of reflecting back to antiquities, artists, writers and musicians were concerned with recording the grit and the true reality of the early 20th century in America.

America in the early 20th century

From the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

experienced enormous industrial, economic, social and cultural change. A continuous wave of European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

immigration and the rising potential for international trade brought increasing growth and prosperity to America. Through art and artistic expression (through all mediums including painting, literature and music), American Realism attempted to portray the exhaustion and cultural exuberance of the figurative American landscape and the life of ordinary Americans at home. Artists used the feelings, textures and sounds of the city to influence the color, texture and look of their creative projects. Musicians noticed the quick and fast paced nature of the early 20th century and responded with a fresh and new tempo. Writers and authors told a new story about Americans; boys and girls real Americans could have grown up with. Pulling away from fantasy and focusing on the now, American Realism presented a new gateway and a breakthrough — introducing modernism, and what it means to be in the present. The Ashcan School

Ashcan School

The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the early twentieth century, best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York's poorer neighborhoods. The movement grew out of a group...

also known as The Eight

The Eight

The Eight may refer to:*Ashcan School, an American school of painters*The Eight , a Hungarian art movement*The Eight ...

and the group called Ten American Painters

Ten American Painters

The Ten American Painters, generally known as The Ten, resigned from the Society of American Artists in late 1897 to protest the commercialism of that group's exhibitions, and their circus-like atmosphere...

created the core of the new American Modernism

American modernism

American modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic...

in the visual arts.

Ashcan School

The Ashcan School

Ashcan School

was a group of New York City artists who sought to capture the feel of turn-of-the-20th-century New York City, through realistic portraits of everyday life. These artists were not only depicting the rich and promising Fifth Avenue socialites, but the lower class richly and culturally textured immigrants. One critic of the time did not like their choice of subjects, which included alleys, tenements, slum dwellers, and in the case of John Sloan, taverns frequented by the working class. They became known as the revolutionary black gang and apostles of ugliness.

George Bellows

George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".-Youth:Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio...

(1882–1925), painted city life in New York City. His paintings had an expressionist boldness and a willingness to take risks. He had a fascination with violence as seen in his painting, Both Members of this Club, which depicts a rather gory boxing scene. In his painting titled Cliff Dwellers, (above), we find a city-scape that is not one particular view but a composite of many views.

Robert Henri

Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...

, (1865–1921) was an important American Realist and a member of The Ashcan School. Henri was interested in the spectacle of common life. He focused on individuals, strangers, quickly passing in the streets in towns and cities. He had a sympathetic portrayal rather that a comic portrayal of people, often using a dark background to add to the warmth of the person portrayed. His works have a heavy impasto which stressed the materiality of the paint and the painter. He influenced Glackens, Luks, Shinn and Sloan. In 1906, he was elected to the National Academy of Design

National Academy of Design

The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...

, but when painters in his circle were rejected for the Academy's 1907 exhibition, he accused fellow jurors of bias and walked off the jury, resolving to organize a show of his own. He would later refer to the Academy as a cemetery of art.

Everett Shinn

Everett Shinn was an American realist painter and member of the Ashcan School, also known as 'the Eight.' He was the youngest member of the group of modernist painters who explored the depiction of real life...

(1876–1953), a member of the Ashcan School, he was the youngest member of the group of modernist painters who explored the depiction of real life. He is most famous for his numerous paintings of New York and the theater and of various aspects of luxury and modern life inspired by his home in New York City. He painted theater scenes from London, Paris and New York. He found interest in the urban spectacle of life, drawing parallels between the theater and crowded seats and life. Unlike an artist like Degas, Shinn depicted interaction between the audience and performer.

George Benjamin Luks

George B. Luks (1866–1933), was an Ashcan school artist whom lived on the Lower East Side

Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

of Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

. In Luks' painting, Hester Street
Hester Street
Hester Street is a street in the Lower East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. The street stretches from Essex Street to Centre Street, with a discontinuity between Chrystie Street and Forsyth Street for Sara Delano Roosevelt Park....

(1905), he shows children being entertained by a man with a toy while a woman and shopkeeper have a conversation in the background. The viewer is among the crowd rather than above it. Luks puts a positive spin on the Lower East Side by showing two young girls dancing in The Spielers, which is a type of dance that working glass immigrants would engage in; despite the poverty, children dance on the street. He looks for the joy and beauty in the life of the poor rather than the tragedy.

William Glackens

William James Glackens was an American realist painter.Glackens studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later moved to New York City, where he co-founded what came to be called the Ashcan School art movement...

(1870–1938), painted the neighborhood surrounding his studio in Washington Square Park

Washington Square Park

Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...

. Instead of using strangers Glackens got his friends to pose in their finest clothes as café goers and shoppers. His work relates to Manet

Manet

-MANET as an abbreviation:*MANET is a mobile ad hoc network, a self-configuring mobile wireless network.*MANET database or Molecular Ancestry Network, bioinformatics database-People with the surname Manet:*Édouard Manet, a 19th-century French painter....

in that they both convey the glitter, fashion, spectacle and isolation of urban nightlife. In The Shoppers, Glackens depicts consumerism which was a rising activity for women in their lives as urban dwellers.

John Sloan

John French Sloan

John French Sloan was an American artist. As a member of The Eight, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often through his window...

(1871–1951), was an Early 20th Century Realist of the Ashcan School, whose concerns with American social conditions led him to join the Socialist

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

Party in 1910. Originally from Philadelphia, he worked in New York after 1904. From 1912–1916, he contributed illustrations to the socialist monthly The Masses. Sloan disliked propaganda, and in his drawings for The Masses, as in his paintings, he focused on the everyday lives of people. He depicted the leisure of the working class with an emphasis on female subjects. Among his best known works are Picnic Grounds and Sunday, Women Drying their Hair. He disliked the Ashcan School label, and expressed his annoyance with art historians who identified him as a painter of the American Scene: "Some of us used to paint little rather sensitive comments about the life around us. We didn't know it was the American Scene. I don't like the name ... A symptom of nationalism, which has caused a great deal of trouble in this world."

Ernest Lawson

Ernest Lawson was a Canadian-American painter and a member of The Eight, a group of artists which included the group's leaders Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens...

(1873–1939) was a Canadian-American

Canadian-American

A Canadian American is someone who was born or someone who grew up in Canada then moved to the United States. The term is particularly apt when applied or self-applied to people with strong ties to Canada, such as those who have lived a significant portion of their lives in, or were educated in,...

painter. Though Lawson mostly painted landscape

Landscape art

Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...

s, he also did some realistic urban scenes which were shown at the 1908 exhibition of The Eight. His painting style is heavily influenced by Impressionism

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

, especially the style of John Henry Twachtman

John Henry Twachtman

John Henry Twachtman was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impressionism to be among the more personal and experimental of his generation...

, Alfred Sisley

Alfred Sisley

Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life, in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air...

, and J. Alden Weir

J. Alden Weir

Julian Alden Weir was an American impressionist painter and member of the Cos Cob Art Colony near Greenwich, Connecticut...

.

Though considered an Impressionist, Lawson's work stylistically falls between Impressionism and realism. He became associated with Henri’s circle of insurgents and was included in the landmark 1908 independent exhibition of The Eight organized to protest the jury system of the National Academy of Design

National Academy of Design

annuals, though he also became involved with the Academy and showed there throughout his life.

Maurice Prendergast

Maurice Brazil Prendergast

Maurice Prendergast

Maurice Brazil Prendergast was an American Post-Impressionist artist who worked in oil, watercolor, and monotype...

(1858–1924) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

post-Impressionist

Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...

artist who worked in oil

Oil painting

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...

, watercolor, and monotype. He was a member of The Eight

Ashcan School

, but the delicacy of his compositions and the mosaic-like beauty of his designs were unique; and his work was more imagination oriented; and idealistic than the other more pragmatic painters in the group. Prendergast's work was more genteel than his more abrasive colleagues. His friendship with Vuillard

Édouard Vuillard

Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...

and Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...

placed him firmly in the postimpressionist

Post-Impressionism

camp. He developed and continued to elaborate a highly personal style, with boldly contrasting, jewel-like colors, and flattened, patternlike forms rhythmically arranged on a canvas. Forms were radically simplified and presented in flat areas of bright, unmodulated color. His paintings have been aptly described as tapestry

Tapestry

Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...

-like or resembling mosaic

Mosaic

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...

s.

Prendergast typically painted people involved in leisurely activities. At the Armory Show

Armory Show

Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors...

in 1913, he displayed seven works that showed his stylistic maturity. Although he predominantly worked in watercolors

Watercolor painting

Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...

, he began using oils in his later career. He also produced a large number of monotypes between 1891 and 1902.

Arthur B. Davies

Arthur B. Davies (1863–1928) was an avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

artist.
He was born in Utica, New York

Utica, New York

Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census....

and studied at the Chicago Academy of Design from 1879 to 1882. He briefly attended the Art Institute of Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...

and then moved to New York City where he studied at the Art Students League

Art Students League of New York

The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...

. Arthur B. Davies

Arthur B. Davies

Arthur Bowen Davies was an avant-garde American artist and patron.-Biography:He was born in Utica, New York and studied at the Chicago Academy of Design from 1879 to 1882...

was president of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors and with Walt Kuhn

Walt Kuhn

Walt Kuhn was an American painter and was an organizer of the modern art Armory Show of 1913, which was the first of its genre in America.-Biography:Kuhn was born in Brooklyn, New York City...

the secretary and Walter Pach

Walter Pach

Walter Pach was an artist, critic, lecturer, art adviser, and art historian who wrote extensively about modern art and championed the cause of modern art...

, he was the principal organizer of the 1913 Armory Show

Armory Show

. Davies is best known for his ethereal figure paintings. He worked as a billboard

Billboard (advertising)

A billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure , typically found in high traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers...

painter, engineering draftsman

Technical drawing

Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....

, and magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

illustrator

Illustrator

An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...

(1882–1967) was a prominent American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

realist painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

and printmaker. Hopper is the most modern of the American realists, and the most contemporary. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching

Etching

Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...

. In both his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of modern American life.

Hopper's teacher, artist Robert Henri

Robert Henri

Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...

, encouraged his students to use their art to "make a stir in the world". He also advised his students, It isn’t the subject that counts but what you feel about it and Forget about art and paint pictures of what interests you in life. In this manner, Henri influenced Hopper, as well as famous students George Bellows

George Bellows

and Rockwell Kent

Rockwell Kent

Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer.- Biography :Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York, the same year as fellow American artists George Bellows and Edward Hopper...

, and motivated them to render realistic depictions of urban life. Some artists in Henri's circle, including another teacher of Hopper’s, John Sloan, became members of “The Eight”, also known as the Ashcan School

Ashcan School

of American Art

American Art

American Art is the debut album of the band Weatherbox. It was released on May 8, 2007 on Doghouse Records. The album received critical acclaim from several sources including underground music distribution company Smartpunk, who lauded the band's style:...

. His first existing oil painting to hint at his famous interiors was Solitary Figure in a Theater (c.1904). During his student years, Hopper also painted dozens of nudes, still lifes, landscapes, and portraits, including his self-portraits.

More visual artists

Joseph Stella

Joseph Stella was an Italian-born, American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America. He is associated with the American Precisionism movement of the 1910s-1940s....

, Charles Sheeler

Charles Sheeler

Charles Rettew Sheeler, Jr. was an American artist. He is recognized as one of the founders of American modernism and one of the master photographers of the 20th century.-Early life and career:...

, Jonas Lie

Jonas Lie (painter)

Jonas Lie was a Norwegian-born American painter. He is best known for colorful paintings of coastlines of New England and city scenes New York City. -Background:...

, Edward Willis Redfield

Edward Willis Redfield

Edward Willis Redfield was an American Impressionist landscape painter and member of the art colony at New Hope, Pennsylvania. He is best known today for his impressionist scenes of the New Hope area, often depicting the snow-covered countryside.Redfield was born in 1869 in Bridgeville, Delaware...

, Joseph Pennell

Joseph Pennell

Joseph Pennell was an American artist and author.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, and first studied there, but like his compatriot and friend, James McNeill Whistler, he afterwards went to Europe and made his home in London...

, Leon Kroll

Leon Kroll

-External links:* *...

, B.J.O. Nordfeldt, Gertrude Käsebier

Gertrude Käsebier

Gertrude Käsebier was one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century. She was known for her evocative images of motherhood, her powerful portraits of Native Americans and her promotion of photography as a career for women.-Early life :Käsebier was born Gertrude...

, Alfred Steiglitz, Edward Steichen

Edward Steichen

Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...

, E. J. Bellocq

E. J. Bellocq

John Ernest Joseph Bellocq was an American professional photographer who worked in New Orleans during the early 20th century. Bellocq is remembered for his haunting photographs of the prostitutes of Storyville, New Orleans' legalized red light district...

Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens (1835–1910), better known by his pen name of Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

, grew up in the Mississippi River

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

frontier town of Hannibal, Missouri

Hannibal, Missouri

Hannibal is a city in Marion and Ralls counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. Hannibal is located at the intersection of Interstate 72 and U.S. Routes 24, 36 and 61, approximately northwest of St. Louis. According to the 2010 U.S. Census the population was 17,606...

. Early 19th-century American writers tended to be flowery, sentimental, or ostentatious - partially because they were still trying to prove that they could write as elegantly as the English. Hemingway, in Green Hills of Africa, perhaps put it best, saying that many Romantics "wrote like exiled English colonials from an England of which they were never a part to a newer England that they were making... They did not use the words that people have always used in speech, the words that survive in language." He goes on later to say, in the very same essay, that all American fiction comes from Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain's style, based on vigorous, realistic, colloquial American speech, gave American writers a new appreciation of their national voice. Twain was the first major author to come from the interior of the country, and he captured its distinctive, humorous slang and iconoclasm. For Twain and other American writers of the late 19th century, realism was not merely a literary technique: It was a way of speaking truth and exploding worn-out conventions. Twain is best known for his works Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer

Thomas "Tom" Sawyer is the title character of the Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . He appears in three other novels by Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Tom Sawyer Abroad , and Tom Sawyer, Detective .Sawyer also appears in at least three unfinished Twain works, Huck and Tom...

and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...

(1871–1900), born in New Jersey, had roots going back to the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

era, soldiers, clergymen, sheriffs, judges, and farmers who had lived a century earlier. Primarily a journalist who also wrote fiction, essays, poetry, and plays, Crane saw life at its rawest, in slums and on battlefields. His haunting Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

novel, The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane . Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound—a "red badge of courage"—to...

, was published to great acclaim in 1895, but he barely had time to bask in the attention before he died, at 28, having neglected his health. He has enjoyed continued success ever since - as a champion of the common man, a realist, and a symbolist. Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is an 1893 novel by American author Stephen Crane. Often called a novella because of its short length, it was Crane's first published book of fiction. Because the work was considered too risqué by publishers, Crane, who was 21 years old at the time, had to finance...

(1893), is one of the best, if not the earliest, naturalistic American novel. It is the harrowing story of a poor, sensitive young girl whose uneducated, alcoholic parents utterly fail her. In love, and eager to escape her violent home life, she allows herself to be seduced into living with a young man, who soon deserts her. When her self-righteous mother rejects her, Maggie becomes a prostitute to survive, but soon commits suicide out of despair. Crane's earthy subject matter and his objective, scientific style, devoid of moralizing, earmark Maggie as a naturalist work.

William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...

(1837–1920), wrote fiction and essays in the realist mode. His ideas about realism in literature developed in parallel with his socialist attitudes. In his role as editor of the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

, and as the author of books such as A Modern Instance

A Modern Instance

A Modern Instance is a realistic novel written by William Dean Howells, and published in 1882 by J. R. Osgood & Co. The novel is about the deterioration of a once loving marriage under the influence of capitalistic greed.-Summary:...

and The Rise of Silas Lapham

The Rise of Silas Lapham

The Rise of Silas Lapham is a realistic novel written by William Dean Howells in 1885 about the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, and his ensuing moral susceptibility. Silas earns a fortune in the paint business, but he lacks social standards, which he tries to attain through...

, Howells exerted a strong opinion and was influential in establishing his theories.

Horatio Alger, Jr

Horatio Alger, Jr.

Horatio Alger, Jr. was a prolific 19th-century American author, best known for his many formulaic juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty...

(1832–1899) was a prolific 19th-century American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

whose principal output was formulaic rags-to-riches juvenile novels that followed the adventures of bootblacks, newsboys, peddlers, buskers, and other impoverished children in their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of respectable middle-class security and comfort. His novels like Ragged Dick
Ragged Dick
Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks is a Bildungsroman by Horatio Alger, Jr. serialized in Student and Schoolmate in 1867, and released as a full length novel in May 1868 by A. K. Loring. It was the first volume in the six volume Ragged Dick Series, and became Alger's...

were hugely popular in their day.

Jacob Riis

Jacob August Riis (1849–1914), a Danish-American muckraker

Muckraker

The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination...

journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, photographer, and social reformer, was born in Ribe

Ribe

Ribe , the oldest extant Danish town, is in southwest Jutland and has a population of 8,192 . Until 1 January 2007, it was the seat of both the surrounding municipality, and county...

, Denmark. He is known for his dedication to using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the less fortunate in New York City, which was the subject of most of his prolific writings and photographic essays. He helped with the implementation of "model tenements" in New York with the help of humanitarian Lawrence Veiller. As one of the first photographers to use flash

Flash (photography)

A flash is a device used in photography producing a flash of artificial light at a color temperature of about 5500 K to help illuminate a scene. A major purpose of a flash is to illuminate a dark scene. Other uses are capturing quickly moving objects or changing the quality of light...

, he is considered a pioneer in photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

Art Young

Arthur "Art" Young was an American cartoonist and writer. He is most famous for his socialist cartoons, especially those drawn for the left wing political magazine The Masses between 1911 and 1917.-Early Years:...

(1866–1943) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

ist and writer. He is most famous for his socialist

Socialism

cartoons, especially those drawn for the radical magazine The Masses
The Masses
The Masses was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the U.S. from 1911 until 1917, when Federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was succeeded by The Liberator and then later The New Masses...

between 1911 and 1917. Young started out as a generally apolitical Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

, but gradually became interested in left wing ideas, and by 1906 or so considered himself a socialist. He became politically active; by 1910, racial

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

and sexual discrimination

Sexism

Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...

and the injustices of the capitalist

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

system became prevalent themes in his work. Young voiced his beliefs and opinions as co-editor of and contributor to the socialist illustrated journal, The Masses, from 1911 to 1918.

James Allen Bland

James A. Bland

James Alan Bland , also known as Jimmy Bland, was an African American musician and song writer.-Biography:...

(1854–1919). was the first prominent African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

Songwriter known for his ballad titled Carry me Back to Old Virginny. In the Evening by the Moonlight, and Golden Slippers are also well known songs of his. Songs of his that were major hits during the period are In the Morning by the Bright Light and De Golden Wedding. Bland wrote most of his songs from 1879 to 1882; in 1881 he left America for England with Haverly's Genuine Colored Minstrels. Bland found England more rewarding than the United States and stayed there until 1890; either he stopped writing songs during this period or he was unable to find an English publisher.

C.A. White

C.A. White (1829–1892) wrote a hit song in 1869, Put Me in My Little Bed, establishing him as a major songwriter. White was a songwriter of serious aspirations: many of his songs were written for vocal quartets. He also made several attempts at opera. As half-owner of the music publishing firm White, Smith & Company

White, Smith & Company

White, Smith & Company was a music publishing firm in Boston, Massachusetts. It issued numerous sheet music titles and a monthly journal, Folio. In 1897 in became the "White-Smith Music Publishing Company."-History:...

, he had a ready outlet for his work: but it was his songs that supported the publishing firm and not the other way around. White did not scorn writing for the popular stage—indeed he wrote a song for the pioneering African-American stage production Out of Bondage—but his principal output was for the parlor singer.

W.C. Handy

W. C. Handy

William Christopher Handy was a blues composer and musician. He was widely known as the "Father of the Blues"....

(1873–1958) was a blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

and musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

, often known as the "Father of the Blues". Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who played the distinctively American form of music known as the blues

Blues

, he is credited with giving it its contemporary form. While Handy was not the first to publish music in the blues form, he took the blues

Delta blues

The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...

from a not very well known regional music style to one of the dominant forces in American music. Handy was an educated musician who used folk material

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from several performers. He loved this folk musical form and brought his own transforming touch to it.

Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...

(between June 1867 and January 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

musician and composer

Composer

of ragtime

Ragtime

Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...

music. He remains the best-known ragtime figure and is regarded as one of the three most important composers of classic ragtime

Classic Rag

Classic Rag is a term used to describe the style of ragtime composition pioneered by Scott Joplin and the Missouri school of ragtime composers...

, along with James Scott

James Scott (musician)

James Sylvester Scott was an African-American ragtime composer, regarded as one of the three most important composers of classic ragtime, along with Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb....

and Joseph Lamb

Joseph Lamb

Joseph Francis Lamb was a noted American composer of ragtime music. Lamb, of Irish descent, was the only non-African American of the "Big Three" composers of classical ragtime, the other two being Scott Joplin and James Scott.-Life and Career:Lamb was born in Montclair, New Jersey...

. His music enjoyed a considerable resurgence of popularity and critical respect in the 1970s, especially for his most famous composition, "The Entertainer

The Entertainer (rag)

"The Entertainer" is sub-titled "A rag time two step", which was a form of dance popular until about 1911, and a style which was common among rags written at the time.Its structure is: Intro AA BB A CC Intro2 DD....

" which was featured as the main theme in the 1973 film The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...

.

Sources

Brooks, Van Wyck (1955). John Sloan. New York: Dutton.
Hills. Reading American Art ed. By Marianne Doezma and Elizabeth Milroy. Yale University Press: New Haven. 1998 ( pps. 311)
Loughery, John (1997). John Sloan: Painter and Rebel . New York: Holt. ISBN 0-8050-5221-6
Pohl, Frances K. Framing America. Thames and Hudson: 2002. (page 302-312)

External links

Music: New Generations of Songwriters: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/smhtml/smessay1.html
Literature: American Realism: http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/lit5.htm
Literature: American Realism: http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/realism.htm

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Introduction

America in the early 20th century

Ashcan School

George Bellows

Robert Henri

Everett Shinn

George Benjamin Luks

William Glackens

John Sloan

Ernest Lawson

Maurice Prendergast

Arthur B. Davies

Edward Hopper

More visual artists

Mark Twain

Stephen Crane

William Dean Howells

Horatio Alger, Jr

Jacob Riis

Art Young

James Allen Bland

C.A. White

W.C. Handy

Scott Joplin

See also

Sources

External links