The style of Realism art turned against the painting in Classicism and Romanticism. The paintings' motifs should not depict any exaggerated ideals, such as the allegories of Antiquity. The motifs rather should be understood by all people and should depict everday life, even daily life of lower classes. The depiction of an unglorified reality, the intention of attributing the same significance and priority to objects and human beings are characteristics of a great importance for artists in Realism. The norms of Academic Painting were abandoned and the painter's internal reality while painting was realized. Courbet, a representant of this style transformed reality and reproduced it on the base of his own subjective experience.[1] At this time, the Daguerreotypie, an early form of photography, has been invented. The Daguerreotypie, too, reflects the real, unglorified world, but it lacks the painter's subjectivity in painting. The artists of the time critisized that photography depicted all objects equally, that portrayed people from different social classes were depicted with the same dignity.[2]
In the middle of the 19th century the women's self-confidence was increasingly strengthened, a fact due among others to the social changes arising during the industrial revolution. From this moment on women, too, were working in the new factories. However, they earned lower wages, they were less well-educated and had no possibility to achieve leadership positions. On the other hand in Central Europe a new national consciousness emerged resulting in the creation of women's movements. Women postulated the participation in public life on juridical, political and economic level.[3] Upon the creation of the "Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein" (German Women's Association) in 1865 the women's postulations were publicly announced.[4] They claimed for the right for women to vote, the right to education at school and universities, the right to exercise a profession. More radical groups postulated equal rights for single mothers and illegitimate children and equal rights at all levels.[5] An also very important isssue was the abandon of the century-long traditional image of women that puts women under the guardianship of men, bounds them to their role as wife and mother and does not concede them any possibilities of development.
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