Art Chowder September | October 2017, Issue 11 | Page 43

THE PROBLEM WITH “REALISM”
By Melville Holmes
Thomas Anshutz (1851-1912)
The Iron Workers’ Noontime
1880
Oil on canvas
17 x 24”
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
Władysław Czachórski (Polish 1850-1911)
A Lady in a Lilac Dress with Flowers
1903
Oil on canvas
22 x 31”
National Museum, Warsaw
Artists outside of France would also
take up the depiction of ordinary
modern life from a Realist stand-
point. When American artist Thomas
Anshutz took up the theme of the
industrial worker in his The Iron
Workers’ Noontime (1880), the sub-
ject was relatively new in American
painting. He had grown up in an
industrial environment, which may
help account for his treatment of the
subject, which has been described as
particularly sympathetic, depicting
the men as individuals during their
midday break, manly yet already sore
and exhausted. 4 Anshutz would even-
tually declare himself a Socialist.
This painting is highly realistic, but in no way resembles a photograph, nor is it “Realism” in the art-historical sense.
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