A-Level: 19th-century painting of working life

Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882 (Courtauld Gallery, London) — Manet turns the tables—or in this case, the bar—on how we view painting.

Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère

Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers (Les raboteurs de parquet), 1875, oil on canvas, 102 x 146.5 cm (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) — 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 ...

Jean-François Millet, L'Angélus, c. 1857-1859, oil on canvas, 21 x 26 (53.3 × 66.0 cm) (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) — 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, Plowing in the Nivernais (detail) — Rosa Bonheur defies the patriarchy, one masterfully painted ox at a time.

Rosa Bonheur, Plowing in the Nivernais (or ...

Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857, oil on canvas, 33 x 43 in (83.5 x 110 cm) (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) — 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

Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers, 1849, Oil on canvas, 165 x 257 cm (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (destroyed)) — Courbet chooses the real over the ideal in this harsh look at the labor that built the modern world.

Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers

Ford Madox Brown, Work, Manchester — Muscles, morals, and mongrels help to illustrate the stratification of social class in Victorian England.

Ford Madox Brown, Work