Castagnary, le Naturalisme et Courbet

Jules-Antoine Castagnary (1830-1888), journalist, statesman, and art critic is best known for his ardent defense of his friend Courbet and for championing the cause of the Realist and Naturalist painters. Before Zola, Castagnary attacked academic and official art, dismissed the Neo-Classical and Romantic Schools, claimed freedom for the artist, formulated liberal, progressive, "humanitarian" principles to be applied to art and asked young artists to translate their own times in an individualistic manner. It is primarily in the two volumes of Castagnary's Salons that we find his theories on the art of his epoch. The present study concentrates on these Salons and examines in turn this critic's aesthetics and critical method, his concept of Realism and Naturalism in painting, his view of Courbet and finally, his appreciations of other contemporary artists such as Corot, Daubigny, Millet and Manet. It is hoped that a new insight will thus be gained into Castagnary's important contribution to the intense artistic struggles of his time. (In French) (PP-Y)