Realist Artists
Painters, Printmakers, Illustrators, 19th Century Realism: Gustave Courbet, Honore Daumier, Jean-Francois Millet, Ilya Repin.

The Gross Clinic (1875)
By Thomas Eakins.

Artists of the Realism School (c. 1840-1900)

The 19th Century Realist Movement

The term Realism was adopted by the great French painter Gustave Courbet (1819-77) in 1855 to encapsulate a style of painting which emerged in France after the Revolution of 1848. If Romanticism was personal, emotional and occasionally spiritual, Realism was objective, and down-to-earth. Realist painters and sculptors sought to convey not grandeur or even beauty, but rather the commonplace - in all its ordinariness. Even so, artists fully explored the confines of this aesthetic, and great artists - notably the sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) - succeeded in breathing heroicism into their works. Rodin's choice of subjects might seem exceptionally grandiose in comparison with the more popular everyday scenes chosen by other artists, but his non-classical, non-idealised figuration conveys unmistakable realism.

PAINTING COLOURS
For details of colour painting
pigments and hues used by
Realist painters, see:
19th Century Colour Palette.

EVOLUTION OF VISUAL ART
For details of art movements
and styles, see: History of Art.
For the chronology and dates
of key events in the evolution
of visual arts around the world
see: History of Art Timeline.

ARTISTS SINCE 1800
For details of the best modern
painters, since 1800, see:
Famous Painters.

WORLD'S GREATEST ARTWORKS
For a list of the Top 10 painters/
sculptors: Best Artists of All Time.

SCULPTURE
For information about the
"plastic arts" and 3-D works
in bronze, stone and clay,
along with biographies of
famous sculptors, see:
Sculpture Art.

MEANING OF ART
For a discussion of the types,
values, and significance of the
visual arts, see: Definition of Art.

This mid-19th century school of French Realism was a prelude to several other modern art movements associated with Realism which appeared during the 20th century. These included: Social Realism (eg. New York Ashcan School), Socialist Realism (notably in the USSR, c.1928-38), Magic Realism (an offshoot of Surrealism) and the hyper-realistic style of Photorealism.

Famous Realist Artists

In addition to Courbet and Rodin, leading exponents of mid-19th century Realism include the draughtsman and printmaker Honore Daumier (1808-78), the devout rural genre-painter Jean-Francois Millet (1814-75), and the Russian portraitist and genre-artist Ilya Repin (1844-1930) and the American figurative painter Thomas Eakins (1844-1916).

Famous Realist Paintings

- Burial at Ornans (1849) by Gustave Courbet: Musee d'Orsay, Paris
- The Barricade (1849) by Jean-Louis Ernst Meissonier: Musee d'Orsay, Paris
- The Gleaners (1857) by Jean Francois Millet: Musee d'Orsay, Paris
- The Laundress (1863) by Honore Daumier: Musee d'Orsay, Paris
- The Volga Boatmen (1872) by Ilya Repin: Russian State Museum

List of Realist Artists

Among the many masters of Realist painting, sculpture and printmaking of the 18th/19th century, were the following:

Aivazovsky, Ivan Konstantinovich (1817-1900) Russian.
Arkhipov, Abram (1862-1930) Russian.
Balzico, Alfonso (1825-1901) Italian Sculptor.
Barre, Jean-August (1811-1896) French Sculptor.
Begas, Reinhold (1831-1911) German Sculptor.
Bellows, George (1882-1925) Member of New York Ashcan School.
Benton, Thomas Hart (1889-1975) American Regionalism painter
Bissen, Hermann Wilhelm (1798-1868) Danish Sculptor.
Bonheur, Rosa (1822-99) French Rural Scene Painter.
Bouguereau, William-Adolphe (1825-1905) French.
Boulanger, Gustave 1824-1888) French.
Cabanel, Alexandre (1823-1889) French.
Castiglione, Giuseppe (1829-1908) Italian.
Chatrousse, Émile (1829-1896) French Sculptor.
Corot, Jean-Baptiste Camille (1796-1875) French Painter.
Courbet, Gustave (181-1877) French.
Cropsey, Jasper Francis (1823-1900) American.
Cugnot, Louis-Leon (1835-1894) French Sculptor.
Daubigny, Charles-Francois (1817-1878) French.
Daumier, Honore (1808-78) French Graphic Artist.
Demuth, Charles (1883-1935) American Urban Landscape Painter.
Diaz De La Pena, Narcisse Virgile (1807-1876) French Painter (Barbizon)
Dillens, Adolphe-Alexandre (1821-1877) Belgian.
Dillens, Hendrick Joseph (1812-1872) Belgian.
Dubois, Paul (1829-1905) French Sculptor.
Dupre, Jules (1811-1889) French Painter (Barbizon).
Eakins, Thomas (1844-1916) American Painter (Boston).
Franceschi, Jules (1825-1893) French Sculptor .
Frémiet, Emmanuel (1824-1910) French Sculptor.
Gérôme, Jean-Leon (1824-1904) French academic painter.
Hamman, Edouard (1819-1888) Belgian Painter.
Heade, Martin Johnson (1819-1904) American.
Henri, Robert (1865-1929) American Ashcan School Painter.
Hodler, Ferdinand (1853-1918) Swiss Symbolist Painter.
Homer, Winslow (1836-1910) American Realist Painter.
Hopper, Edward (1882-1967) American urban genre painter.
Innes, George (1825-1894) American landscape Painter.
Ives, Chauncey Bradley (1810-1894) American Sculptor.
Jacque, Charles Émile (1813-1894) French.
Jensen, Christian Albrecht (1792-1870) Danish Painter.
Klinger, Max (1857-1920) German Symbolist Painter.
Lane, Fitz Hugh (1804-1865) American Painter.
Leibl, Wilhelm (1844-1900) German Portraitist.
Leickert, Charles Henri Joseph (181-1907) Belgian Painter.
Lenbach, Franz (1836-1904) Eminent German Society Portraitist.
Levitan, Isaac (1860-1900) Russian Artist.
Leys, Henri (1815-1869) Belgian.
Matejko, Jan (1838-1893) Polish Painter.
Menzel, Adolph (1815-1905) German Realist History Painter.
Meissonier, Jean-Louis Ernst (1815-91) French painter.
Meryon, Charles (1821-1868) French Graphic Artist.
Millais, Sir John Everett (1829-1896) English Painter.
Millet, Jean-François (1814-1875) French Painter (Barbizon).
Molin, Johann Peter (1814-1873) Swedish Sculptor.
Moreau, Gustave (1826-1898) French Symbolist Painter.
Moreau, Mathurin (1822-1912) French Sculptor.
Nordenberg, Bengt (1822-1902) Swedish Painter.
Ottin, Auguste (1811-1890) French Sculptor.
Oudiné, Eugène André (1810-1887) French Sculptor.
Paton, Sir Joseph Noel (1821-1901) Scottish Painter.
Perraud, Jean-Joseph (1819-1876) French Sculptor.
Pettenkofen, August Von (1822-1889) Austrian Painter.
Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre-Cécile (1824-1898) French decorative painter.
Repin, Ilya Yefimovich (1844-1930) Russian genre painter, portraitist.
Ribot, Théodule-Augustin (1823-1891) French.
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) American Illustrator, Portraitist.
Rodin, Auguste (1840-1917) French Sculptor.
Rousseau, Theodore (1812-1867) French Painter (Barbizon).
Schoenewerk, Alexandre (1820-1885) French Sculptor.
Sheeler, Charles (1883-1965) New York Industrial Landscape Painter.
Sorolla Y Bastida, Joaquin (1863-1923) Spanish Impressionist.
Spitzweg, Carl (1808-1885) German Biedermeier genre painter.
Stevens, Alfred (1817-1875) English Sculptor.
Stroobant, François (1819-1916) Belgian Painter.
Tadolini, Scipione (1822-1892) Italian Sculptor.
Troyon, Constant (1810-1865) French Painter.
Vela, Vincenzo (1820-1891) Swiss Sculptor.
Waldmuller, Ferdinand Georg (1793-1865) Austrian Biedermeier painter.
Wimar, Carl (1828-1862) American Painter.
Wyatt, Matthew Cotes (1777-1862) English Sculptor.

• For more Realist painters, see: Visual Artists: Greatest.
• For information about Realism, see: Art Encyclopedia.