Realist Artists
Painters, Printmakers, Illustrators, 19th Century Realism: Gustave Courbet, Honore Daumier, Jean-Francois Millet, Ilya Repin.
Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art - HOMEPAGE

The Third Class Carriage (1863-65)
(detail) by Honore Daumier.

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

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.

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 Artists.

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). For details of sculpture, see: 19th Century Sculptors.

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 Painter
Balzico, Alfonso (1825-1901) Italian Sculptor
Barre, Jean-August (1811-1896) French Sculptor (Paris)
Begas, Reinhold (1831-1911) German Sculptor
Bissen, Hermann Wilhelm (1798-1868) Danish Sculptor
Bonheur, Rosa (1822-99) French Rural Scene Painter
Bouguereau, William-Adolphe (1825-1905) French Painter
Boulanger, Gustave 1824-1888) French Painter (Paris)
Cabanel, Alexandre (1823-1889) French Painter (Paris)
Castiglione, Giuseppe (1829-1908) Italian Painter (Paris)
Chatrousse, Émile (1829-1896) French Sculptor (Paris)
Corot, Jean-Baptiste Camille (1796-1875) French Painter (also Romantic)
Courbet, Gustave (181-1877) French Painter
Cropsey, Jasper Francis (1823-1900) American Painter
Cugnot, Louis-Léon (1835-1894) French Sculptor
Daubigny, Charles-François (1817-1878) French Painter
Daumier, Honore (1808-78) French Graphic Artist
Diaz De La Peña, Narcisse Virgile (1807-1876) French Painter (Barbizon)
Dillens, Adolphe-Alexandre (1821-1877) Belgian Painter (Brussels)
Dillens, Hendrick Joseph (1812-1872) Belgian Painter
Dubois, Paul (1829-1905) French Sculptor (Paris)
Dupré, Jules (1811-1889) French Painter (Barbizon)
Franceschi, Jules (1825-1893) French Sculptor
Frémiet, Emmanuel (1824-1910) French Sculptor (Paris)
Gérôme, Jean-Léon (1824-1904) French Painter (Paris)
Hamman, Edouard (1819-1888) Belgian Painter (Paris)
Heade, Martin Johnson (1819-1904) American Painter
Innes, George (1825-1894) American Painter
Ives, Chauncey Bradley (1810-1894) American Sculptor (Rome)
Jacque, Charles Émile (1813-1894) French Painter (Barbizon)
Jensen, Christian Albrecht (1792-1870) Danish Painter
Lane, Fitz Hugh (1804-1865) American Painter
Leickert, Charles Henri Joseph (181-1907) Belgian Painter
Leys, Henri (1815-1869) Belgian Painter
Matejko, Jan (1838-1893) Polish Painter
Menzel, Adolph Von (1815-1905) German Painter (Berlin)
Meissonier, Jean-Louis Ernst (1815-91) French painter
Meryon, Charles (1821-1868) French Graphic Artist (Paris)
Millais, Sir John Everett (1829-1896) English Painter (London)
Millet, Jean-François (1814-1875) French Painter (Barbizon)
Molin, Johann Peter (1814-1873) Swedish Sculptor
Moreau, Gustave (1826-1898) French Painter (Paris)
Moreau, Mathurin (1822-1912) French Sculptor (Paris)
Nordenberg, Bengt (1822-1902) Swedish Painter (Düsseldorf)
Ottin, Auguste (1811-1890) French Sculptor (Paris)
Oudiné, Eugène André (1810-1887) French Sculptor (Paris)
Paton, Sir Joseph Noel (1821-1901) Scottish Painter
Perraud, Jean-Joseph (1819-1876) French Sculptor (Paris)
Pettenkofen, August Von (1822-1889) Austrian Painter (Vienna)
Puvis De Chavannes, Pierre-Cécile (1824-1898) French Painter
Repin, Ilya Yefimovich (1844-1930) Russian Painter
Ribot, Théodule-Augustin (1823-1891) French Painter
Rodin, Auguste (1840-1917) French Sculptor
Rousseau, Théodore (1812-1867) French Painter (Barbizon)
Schoenewerk, Alexandre (1820-1885) French Sculptor (Paris)
Stevens, Alfred (1817-1875) English Sculptor
Stroobant, François (1819-1916) Belgian Painter
Tadolini, Scipione (1822-1892) Italian Sculptor (Rome)
Troyon, Constant (1810-1865) French Painter
Vela, Vincenzo (1820-1891) Swiss Sculptor (Italy)
Wimar, Carl (1828-1862) American Painter (St Louis)
Wyatt, Matthew Cotes (1777-1862) English Sculptor (London)

• For a list of the top painters/sculptors, see: Visual Artists: Greatest.
• For biographies of established painters and sculptors in Ireland, see: Famous Irish Artists.
• For information about visual arts in the 32 counties, see: Irish Art Encyclopedia.