Illusions of Reality - Naturalist Painting, Photography and Cinema, 1875-1918

Dominant force in art

The large-scale exhibition presents more than 50 works belonging to the Naturalist movement, which was one of the most dominant forces in art in the last quarter of the 19th century. Naturalist painting is characterised by a photographic style, often carried out on very large canvasses - and as a spectator, you can easily lose yourself in the images, finding more and more detail the longer you look at it.

Ordinary people, everyday lives

True to Naturalist tradition - in literature, its most famous exponent was writer Émile Zola - the painters tended to depict subjects from ordinary people's everyday lives, often intending to criticise the hardships of poverty-stricken peasants and city workers, or to deliver a message of morals.

Context of photography and film

The Van Gogh Museum puts these paintings into context by combining them with early photographic works. Although many of the Naturalist painters used photography as an aid, in order to achieve the accuracy they strove for, photography as a medium wasn't yet developed enough to be an art form in its own right. The exhibition vividly illustrates the interrelation between the two, and the shown film fragments that are based on works by Zola allow the visitor to grasp the full extent of Naturalism as a genre-crossing movement.