Courbet and the Naturalistic Movement

Abstract

A TRUE history of taste, one that was written realistically, would study all of the conditions which determine a movement in art. If political preoccupations re-oriented aesthetic judgments, that fact should be noted, and if scientific discoveries had their share in it, then that too is a relevant fact. To look upon artistic movements as cross sections of civilisation, to see how far the arts have directed the rest of life and how far the rest of life has influenced the course of the arts would be the most general statement of such a program.