Realism (art movement)

This article is about the 19th-century art movement. For naturalism or realism in the arts, see Realism (arts).

Realism was an artistic movement that began in France 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 reflected the changes brought by the Industrial and Commercial Revolutions. The popularity of such "realistic" works grew with the introduction of photography—a new visual source that created a desire for people to produce representations which look objectively real.



Beginnings in France


The Realist movement began in the mid-19th century as a reaction to Romanticism 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 Gustave Courbet, Jean-François Millet, Honoré Daumier, and Jean-Baptiste-Camille 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]


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]

Beyond France

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 McNeill Whistler, as well as English artists Hubert von Herkomer and Luke Fildes had great success with realist paintings dealing with social issues and depictions of the "real" world. The Ashcan School, an art movement largely based in New York City, included such artists as George Bellows and Robert Henri. It helped to define American realism in its tendency to depict the daily life of poorer members of society.


  1. Metropolitan Museum of Art
  3. NGA Realism movement
  4. National Gallery glossary, Realism movement
  5. Philosophy of Realism
  7. 1 2 Nineteenth-Century French Realism | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  8. National Gallery of Art
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