Realism (art movement)

This article is about the 19th-century art movement. For cal idealism and Romantic emotionalism and drama were
naturalism or realism in the arts, see Realism (arts).
avoided equally, and often sordid or untidy elements of
Realism was an artistic movement that began in France subjects were not smoothed over or omitted. Social realism emphasizes the depiction of the working class, and
treating them with the same seriousness as other classes
in art, but realism, as the avoidance of articiality, 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.[2]
Realism as an art movement was led by Gustave Courbet
in France. It spread across Europe and was inuential
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 dene artistic style.
After the arrival of Impressionism 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.

1 Beginnings in France

James Abbot McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Gold Old

Battersea Bridge (1872), Tate Britain, London, England

in the 1850s, after the 1848 Revolution.[1] Realists rejected Romanticism, which had dominated French literature and art since the late 18th century. Realism revolted
against the exotic subject matter and 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. Realist works depicted people of all classes in situations that arise in ordinary life, and often reected the changes brought by the
Industrial and Commercial Revolutions. The popularity
of such realistic works grew with the introduction of
photographya new visual source that created a desire Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet, 1854. A Realist painting by
for people to produce representations which look objec- Gustave Courbet.
tively real.
The Realist movement began in the mid-19th century as a
The Realists depicted everyday subjects and situations reaction to Romanticism and History painting. In favor of
in contemporary settings, and attempted to depict indi- depictions of 'real' life, the Realist painters used common
viduals of all social classes in a similar manner. Classi- laborers, and ordinary people in ordinary surroundings
1

engaged in real activities as subjects for their works. The

chief exponents of Realism were Gustave Courbet, JeanFranois Millet, Honor Daumier, and Jean-BaptisteCamille Corot.[3][4][5] Jules Bastien-Lepage 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 Impressionism.[6]
Realists used unprettied detail depicting the existence
of ordinary contemporary life, coinciding in the contemporaneous naturalist literature of mile Zola, Honor de
Balzac, and Gustave Flaubert.[7]

BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE

Gustave
Courbet, The Stone Breakers, 1849

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 depicted ordinary people from his native region. The paintings were done on huge canvases that would typically be
used for history paintings.[7]

Gustave
Courbet, After Dinner at Ornans, 1849

Gustave
Courbet, A Burial At Ornans, 1849

Jean-Franois Millet, The Sower, 1850

JeanFranois Millet, The Gleaners, 1857

Honor
Daumier, The Third Class Wagon, 186264

Gustave
Courbet, Le Sommeil (Sleep), 1866, Petit Palais,
Muse des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris

JeanBaptiste-Camille Corot, Young Girl Reading,

1868, National Gallery of Art[8]

Jules

Breton,

The

Song of the Lark, 1884

douard
Manet, Breakfast in the Studio (the Black Jacket),
New Pinakothek, Munich, Germany, 1868

Jules Breton,
The End of the Working Day, 188687

2 Beyond France

Jean-Franois Millet, A
Norman Milkmaid at Grville, 1871

Ilya Repin, Barge Haulers on the Volga, 187073

The French Realist movement had stylistic and ideological equivalents in all other Western countries, developing
somewhat later. In particular the Peredvizhniki or Wanderers group in Russia who formed in the 1860s and organized exhibitions from 1871 included many realists such
as genre art master Vasily Perov, landscape artists Ivan
Shishkin, Alexei Savrasov, and Arkhip Kuindzhi, highly
regarded portraitist Ivan Kramskoy, war artist Vasily
Vereshchagin, historical artist Vasily Surikov and, especially, Ilya Repin, who is considered by many to be the
most renowned Russian artist of the 19th century.

In Britain artists such as the American James Abbot

Jules
McNeill Whistler, as well as English artists Hubert von
Bastien-Lepage, October, 1878, National Gallery of Herkomer and Luke Fildes had great success with realVictoria
ist paintings dealing with social issues and depictions of
the real world. The Ashcan School, an art movement

BEYOND FRANCE

largely based in New York City, included such artists as

George Bellows and Robert Henri. It helped to dene
American realism in its tendency to depict the daily life
of poorer members of society.

Hubert von
Herkomer, Hard Times, 1885

Illarion
Pryanishnikov, Jokers. Gostiny Dvor in Moscow,
1865

Everett
Shinn, Cross Streets of New York, 1899, Corcoran
Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Robert Henri, Snow

in New York, 1902, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

John French
Sloan, McSorleys Bar, 1912, Detroit Institute of
Arts

Vasily Perov,
The Hunters at Rest, 1871

Vladimir
Makovsky, Philanthropists, 1874

Ivan
Shishkin, A Rye Field, 1878

References

[1] Metropolitan Museum of Art

[2] Finocchio, Ross. Nineteenth-Century French Realism.
In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. online (October
2004)
[3] NGA Realism movement
[4] National Gallery glossary, Realism movement
[5] Philosophy of Realism
[6] Fry, Roger. 1920. Vision and Design. London: Chatto
& Windus. An Essay in sthetics. 11-24. Accessed
online on 13 March 2012 at http://www.scribd.com/doc/
52044301/Roger-Fry-Vision-and-design
[7] Nineteenth-Century French Realism | Essay | Heilbrunn
Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of
Art
[8] National Gallery of Art

External links
19th Century French Realism, Heilbrunn Timeline
of Art History, Metropolitan Museum of Art

5 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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