Muscles, morals, and mongrels help to illustrate the stratification of social class in Victorian England.
A-Level: 19th-century painting of working life
Manet turns the tables—or in this case, the bar—on how we view painting.
Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
The male body at work is gorgeously glorified in Caillebotte’s canvas, raising questions of class and sexuality.
Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers (Les raboteurs ...
This sentimental scene of a quiet moment of prayer in the fields reflects a nostalgia for religion in modern France.
Jean-François Millet, L’Angélus
Rosa Bonheur defies the patriarchy, one masterfully painted ox at a time.
Rosa Bonheur, Plowing in the Nivernais (or ...
Soft and lovely though it may be, this image struck fear in the hearts of urban elites when it was first exhibited.
Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners
Courbet chooses the real over the ideal in this harsh look at the labor that built the modern world.
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