Realism was an artistic movement that emerged in France in the 1840s, around the

1848 Revolution The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europe ...

. Realists rejected

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

, which had dominated French literature and art since the early 19th century. Realism revolted against the exotic subject matter and the exaggerated emotionalism and drama of the Romantic movement. Instead, it sought to portray real and typical contemporary people and situations with truth and accuracy, and not avoiding unpleasant or sordid aspects of life. The movement aimed to focus on unidealized subjects and events that were previously rejected in art work. Realist works depicted people of all classes in situations that arise in ordinary life, and often reflected the changes brought by the

Industrial Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...

and

Commercial Revolution The Commercial Revolution consisted of the creation of a European economy based on trade, which began in the 11th century and lasted until it was succeeded by the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century. Beginning with the Crusades, Europea ...

s. Realism was primarily concerned with how things appeared to the eye, rather than containing ideal representations of the world. The popularity of such "realistic" works grew with the introduction of

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

—a new visual source that created a desire for people to produce representations which look objectively real. The Realists depicted everyday subjects and situations in contemporary settings, and attempted to depict individuals of all social classes in a similar manner. Gloomy earth toned palettes were used to ignore beauty and idealization that was typically found in art. This movement sparked controversy because it purposefully criticized social values and the upper classes, as well as examining the new values that came along with the industrial revolution. Realism is widely regarded as the beginning of the modern art movement due to the push to incorporate modern life and art together. Classical idealism and Romantic emotionalism and drama were avoided equally, and often sordid or untidy elements of subjects were not smoothed over or omitted. Social realism emphasizes the depiction of the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...

, and treating them with the same seriousness as other classes in art, but realism, as the avoidance of artificiality, in the treatment of human relations and emotions was also an aim of Realism. Treatments of subjects in a heroic or sentimental manner were equally rejected. Realism as an art movement was led by

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and ...

in France. It spread across Europe and was influential for the rest of the century and beyond, but as it became adopted into the mainstream of painting it becomes less common and useful as a term to define artistic style. After the arrival of

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

and later movements which downgraded the importance of precise illusionistic brushwork, it often came to refer simply to the use of a more traditional and tighter painting style. It has been used for a number of later movements and trends in art, some involving careful illusionistic representation, such as Photorealism, and others the depiction of "realist" subject matter in a social sense, or attempts at both.

Beginnings in France

The Realist movement began in the mid-19th century as a reaction to

and History painting. In favor of depictions of 'real' life, the Realist painters used common laborers, and ordinary people in ordinary surroundings engaged in real activities as subjects for their works. The chief exponents of Realism were

Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism ...

Honoré Daumier Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808February 10, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second N ...

, and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

Jules Bastien-Lepage Jules Bastien-Lepage (1 November 1848 – 10 December 1884) was a French painter closely associated with the beginning of naturalism, an artistic style that emerged from the later phase of the Realist movement. His most famous work is his lan ...

is closely associated with the beginning of ''Naturalism'', an artistic style that emerged from the later phase of the Realist movement and heralded the arrival of

.Fry, Roger. 1920. "Vision and Design." London: Chatto & Windus. "An Essay in Æsthetics." 11-24. Accessed online on 13 March 2012 at Realists used unprettified detail depicting the existence of ordinary contemporary life, coinciding in the contemporaneous naturalist literature of

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...

Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly , ; born Honoré Balzac;Jean-Louis Dega, La vie prodigieuse de Bernard-François Balssa, père d'Honoré de Balzac : Aux sources historiques de La Comédie humaine, Rodez, Subervie, 1998, 665 p. 20 May 179 ...

, and

Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...

.Nineteenth-Century French Realism , Essay , Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History , The Metropolitan Museum of Art
/ref> Courbet was the leading proponent of Realism and he challenged the popular history painting that was favored at the state-sponsored art academy. His groundbreaking paintings '' A Burial at Ornans'' and ''

The Stonebreakers ''The Stone Breakers'' (french: Les Casseurs de pierres) was an 1849 painting by the French painter Gustave Courbet. It was a work of realism, depicting two peasants, a young man and an old man, breaking rocks. ''The Stone Breakers'' was first ex ...

'' depicted ordinary people from his native region. Both paintings were done on huge canvases that would typically be used for history paintings. Although Courbet's early works emulated the sophisticated manner of Old Masters such as Rembrandt and

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

, after 1848 he adopted a boldly inelegant style inspired by

popular print Popular prints is a term for printed images of generally low artistic quality which were sold cheaply in Europe and later the New World from the 15th to 18th centuries, often with text as well as images. They were some of the earliest examples of ...

s, shop signs, and other work of folk artisans. In ''The Stonebreakers'', his first painting to create a controversy, Courbet eschewed the pastoral tradition of representing human subjects in harmony with nature. Rather, he depicted two men juxtaposed against a charmless, stony roadside. The concealment of their faces emphasizes the dehumanizing nature of their monotonous, repetitive labor. File:Gustave Courbet - A Burial at Ornans - Google Art Project 2.jpg,

, '' A Burial At Ornans'', 1849 File:Jean-François Millet - Gleaners - Google Art Project.jpg,

, ''

The Gleaners ''The Gleaners'' (''Des glaneuses'') is an oil painting by Jean-François Millet completed in 1857. It depicts three peasant women gleaning a field of stray stalks of wheat after the harvest. The painting is famous for featuring in a sympathet ...

'', 1857 File:Honoré Daumier (French, Marseilles 1808–1879 Valmondois) - The Third-Class Carriage - Google Art Project.jpg,

, ''

The Third Class Carriage ''The Third-Class Carriage'' (French: "Le Wagon de troisième classe") is the name of at least three oil paintings entitled made by the French painter Honoré Daumier . In a realistic manner, Daumier depicts the poverty and fortitude of workin ...

'', 1862–1864 File:Gustave Courbet 018.jpg,

, ''

The Stone Breakers ''The Stone Breakers'' (french: Les Casseurs de pierres) was an 1849 painting by the French painter Gustave Courbet. It was a work of realism, depicting two peasants, a young man and an old man, breaking rocks. ''The Stone Breakers'' was first ex ...

'', 1849 File:Gustave Courbet 031.jpg,

, ''

After Dinner at Ornans ''After Dinner at Ornans'' (French - ''L'Après-dînée à Ornans'') is a 195 by 257 cm painting by Gustave Courbet, painted in winter 1848–1849 in Ornans. It is now in the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille. Decades later, ''Mother Anthony's Tave ...

'', 1849 File:Jean-François Millet - The Sower - Google Art Project.jpg,

, '' The Sower'', 1850 File:The Sleepers by Gustave Courbet.jpg,

, ''

Le Sommeil ''Le Sommeil'' (translated in English variously as ''The Sleepers'' and ''Sleep'') is an eroticDorothy M. KosinskiGustave Courbet's ''The Sleepers.'' The Lesbian Image in Nineteenth Century French Art and Literature Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 9, N ...

(Sleep)'', 1866, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris File:Young Girl Reading by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot c1868.jpg, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, ''Young Girl Reading'', 1868, National Gallery of Art File:Edouard Manet 025.jpg,

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bo ...

, ''Breakfast in the Studio (the Black Jacket)'',

New Pinakothek The Neue Pinakothek (, ''New Pinacotheca'') is an art gallery, art museum in Munich, Germany. Its focus is Western art history, European Art of the 18th and 19th centuries, and it is one of the most important museums of art of the nineteenth cent ...

Munich, Germany Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, 1868 File:Jean-François Millet - A Norman Milkmaid at Gréville - Google Art Project.jpg,

, ''A Norman Milkmaid at Gréville'', 1871 File:Jules Bastien-Lepage - October - Google Art Project.jpg,

, ''

October October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the sixth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old calendar of Romulus , October retained its name (from Latin and Greek ''ôc ...

'', 1878,

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

File:The Song of the Lark (Jules Breton, 1884).jpg,

Jules Breton Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton (1 May 1827 – 5 July 1906) was a 19th-century French naturalist painter. His paintings are heavily influenced by the French countryside and his absorption of traditional methods of painting helped make Jules ...

, ''The Song of the Lark'', 1884 File:Brooklyn Museum - Fin du travail (The End of the Working Day) - Jules Breton.jpg,

, ''The End of the Working Day'', 1886–87

Beyond France

The French Realist movement had stylistic and ideological equivalents in all other Western countries, developing somewhat later. The Realist movement in France was characterized by a spirit of rebellion against powerful official support for history painting. In countries where institutional support of history painting was less dominant, the transition from existing traditions of genre painting to Realism presented no such schism.Rubin, J. 2003. "Realism". ''Grove Art Online''. An important Realist movement beyond France was the

Peredvizhniki Peredvizhniki ( rus, Передви́жники, , pʲɪrʲɪˈdvʲiʐnʲɪkʲɪ), often called The Wanderers or The Itinerants in English, were a group of Russian realist artists who formed an artists' cooperative in protest of academic restr ...

or ''Wanderers'' group in Russia who formed in the 1860s and organized exhibitions from 1871 included many realists such as genre artist

Vasily Perov Vasily Grigorevich Perov (russian: Васи́лий Григо́рьевич Перо́в; 2 January 1834 (21 December 1833 O.S.) – 10 June (29 May O.S.) 1882) was a Russian painter, a key figure of the Russian Realist movement and one o ...

, landscape artists

Ivan Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (russian: Ива́н Ива́нович Ши́шкин; 25 January 1832 – 20 March 1898) was a Russian landscape painter closely associated with the Peredvizhniki movement. Biography Shishkin was born to a Russian m ...

, Alexei Savrasov, and

Arkhip Kuindzhi Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (; rus, Архи́п Ива́нович Куи́нджи ; ; 27 January 1841 – 24 July 1910) was a Ukrainian landscape painter active in the Russian Empire, of Pontic Greek descent. Date of birth Kuindzhi's exact da ...

, portraitist

Ivan Kramskoy Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi (russian: Ива́н Никола́евич Крамско́й; June 8 (O.S. May 27), 1837, Ostrogozhsk – April 6 (O.S. March 24), 1887, Saint Petersburg) was a Russian painter and art critic. He was an intellectual l ...

, war artist Vasily Vereshchagin, historical artist

Vasily Surikov Vasily Ivanovich Surikov (Russian: Василий Иванович Суриков; 24 January 1848 – 19 March 1916) was a Russian Realist history painter. Many of his works have become familiar to the general public through their use as illus ...

and, especially, Ilya Repin, who is considered by many to be the most renowned Russian artist of the 19th century. Courbet's influence was felt most strongly in Germany, where prominent realists included

Adolph Menzel Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (8 December 18159 February 1905) was a German Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings. Along with Caspar David Friedrich, he is considered one of the two most prominent German painters of t ...

Wilhelm Leibl Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl (October 23, 1844 – December 4, 1900) was a German realist painter of portraits and scenes of peasant life. Biography Leibl was born in Cologne, where his father was the director of the Cathedral choir. He was a ...

Wilhelm Trübner Wilhelm Trübner (February 3, 1851 – December 21, 1917) was a German realist painter of the circle of Wilhelm Leibl. Biography Trübner was born in Heidelberg. He was the third son of a silver- and goldsmith, Johann Georg Trübner, and h ...

, and

Max Liebermann Max Liebermann (20 July 1847 – 8 February 1935) was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important ...

. Leibl and several other young German painters met Courbet in 1869 when he visited Munich to exhibit his works and demonstrate his manner of painting from nature.Nationalgalerie (Berlin), and Françoise Forster-Hahn. 2001. ''Spirit of an Age: Nineteenth-Century Paintings From the Nationalgalerie, Berlin''. London: National Gallery Company. p. 155. In Italy the artists of the

Macchiaioli The Macchiaioli () were a group of Italian painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the nineteenth century. They strayed from antiquated conventions taught by the Italian art academies, and did much of their painting outdoors in order to ...

group painted Realist scenes of rural and urban life. The

Hague School The Hague School is a group of artists who lived and worked in The Hague between 1860 and 1890. Their work was heavily influenced by the realist painters of the French Barbizon school. The painters of the Hague school generally made use of relati ...

were Realists in the Netherlands whose style and subject matter strongly influenced the early works of

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

. In Britain artists such as the American

James Abbott McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

, as well as English artists

Ford Madox Brown Ford Madox Brown (16 April 1821 – 6 October 1893) was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painti ...

Hubert von Herkomer Sir Hubert von Herkomer (born as Hubert Herkomer; 26 May 1849 – 31 March 1914) was a Bavarian-born British painter, pioneering film-director, and composer. Though a very successful portrait artist, especially of men, he is mainly remembered fo ...

and

Luke Fildes __NOTOC__ Sir Samuel Luke Fildes (3 October 1843 – 28 February 1927) was a British painter and illustrator born in Liverpool and trained at the South Kensington and Royal Academy Schools. He was the grandson of the political activist Mar ...

had great success with realist paintings dealing with social issues and depictions of the "real" world. In the United States,

Winslow Homer Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...

and

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

were important Realists and forerunners of the

Ashcan School The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the late 19th-early 20th century that produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods. ...

, an early-20th-century art movement largely based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. The Ashcan School included such artists as George Bellows and

Robert Henri Robert Henri (; June 24, 1865 – July 12, 1929) was an American painter and teacher. As a young man, he studied in Paris, where he identified strongly with the Impressionists, and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against A ...

, and helped to define

American realism American Realism was a style in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important te ...

in its tendency to depict the daily life of poorer members of society. Later on in America, the term realism took on various new definitions and adaptations once the movement hit the U.S. Surrealism and

magical realism Magical is the adjective for magic. It may also refer to: * Magical (horse) Magical (foaled 18 May 2015) is an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse who excelled over middle distances and was rated in the top twenty racehorses in the world in 2018 and ...

developed out of the French realist movement in the 1930s, and in the 1950s ''new realism'' developed. This sub-movement considered art to exist as a thing in itself opposed to representations of the real world. In modern-day America, realism art is generally regarded as anything that does not fall into abstract art, therefore including mostly art that depicts realities. File:Illarion Michajlowitsch Prjanischnikow 002.jpg,

Illarion Pryanishnikov Illarion Mikhailovich Pryanishnikov (russian: Илларио́н Миха́йлович Пря́нишников; – ) was a Russian painter, one of the founders of the Peredvizhniki artistic cooperative, which broke away from the rigors ...

, ''Jokers. Gostiny Dvor in Moscow'', 1865 File:Konstantin Apollonowitsch Sawizkij 001.jpg, Konstantin Savitsky, ''Repairing the Railway'', 1874 File:Ivan Shishkin - Рожь - Google Art Project.jpg,

, '' A Rye Field'', 1878 File:Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl 007.jpg,

, ''The Village Politicians'', 1877 File:Adolph von Menzel - Rear of House and Backyard - WGA15047.jpg,

, ''Rear of House and Backyard'', ca. 1846 File:Le macchiaiole.jpg,

Giovanni Fattori Giovanni Fattori (September 6, 1825August 30, 1908) was an Italian artist, one of the leaders of the group known as the Macchiaioli. He was initially a painter of historical themes and military subjects. In his middle years, inspired by the Barbi ...

, ''Three Peasants in a Field'', 1866–67 File:Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch - Boereninterieur.jpg, Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch, ''Farmhouse Interior'', between 1870 and 1903 File:Ford Madox Brown - The Last of England - Google Art Project.jpg,

, '' The Last of England'', 1852–1855 File:Hubert von Herkomer - Hard Times.JPG,

, ''Hard Times'', 1885 File:crossstreetsofnewyork.JPG,

Everett Shinn Everett Shinn (November 6, 1876 – May 1, 1953) was an American painter and member of the urban realist Ashcan School. Shinn started as a newspaper illustrator in Philadelphia, demonstrating a rare facility for depicting animated movement, a ...

, ''Cross Streets of New York'', 1899,

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

, Washington DC File:Snow in New York.jpg,

, ''Snow in New York'', 1902, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC File:McSorley's Bar 1912 John Sloan.jpg,

John French Sloan John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known ...

, '' McSorley's Bar'', 1912,

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...

References

External links

''19th Century French Realism,'' Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Metropolitan Museum of Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Realism (Arts) Art movements French art movements Art history 19th century in art Realism Visual arts theory American art movements Russian art movements