Realism

Gustave Courbet
A Young Woman Reading
Image courtesy of
The National Gallery of Art, U.S.A

Time Period:
Mid-19th century

Geographic Center:
France

Background:
The realistic styles of artists in the mid-19th century grew out of a reaction towards the fantastic nature of Romanticism. This was the time when the effects of the Industrial Revolution took an undeniable toll on the people, and writers acknowledged the poor conditions of industrialized urban cities. This was also the time when Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto and peasant rebellions broke out. Realism also go hand in hand with philosophers such as Comte, and relate to the literary movement that included novelists such as Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola and George Sand.

Effect on Faces and Figures:
Realism had a greater effect on subject matter rather than technique. While in the past, artists painted the ideal, Realists chose to paint the plain and the common. They painted images of the poor, the laboring, and the dead as plain as life, itself. Colors were dulled down and artists painted what they saw the way the saw it.

Famous Artists:
Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Jean-François Millet