Suezan Aikins
Late 20th Century Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Watercolor
Late 20th Century Realist Figurative Prints
Woodcut
Late 20th Century Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Watercolor
Late 20th Century Realist Figurative Prints
Woodcut
Late 20th Century Realist Figurative Prints
Woodcut
People Also Browsed
Vintage 1960s Japanese Showa Prints
Paper
Late 20th Century Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Canvas
Vintage 1960s German Mid-Century Modern Musical Instruments
Metal
Mid-20th Century Landscape Prints
Sumi Ink, Washi Paper
Antique 1850s Japanese Edo Prints
Paper
Early 20th Century Prints
Paper
Mid-20th Century Japanese Furniture
Wood
Early 20th Century Japanese Prints
Silk
20th Century Japanese Showa Prints
Paper
Vintage 1960s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Prints
Paper
Early 20th Century Japanese Prints
Paper
1920s Figurative Prints
Woodcut
Vintage 1960s Swiss Mid-Century Modern Mobiles and Kinetic Sculptures
Paper
Antique 19th Century French Rococo Paintings
Gesso, Wood
20th Century Japanese Showa Prints
Paper
Early 20th Century Landscape Prints
Woodcut
A Close Look at realist Art
Realist art attempts to portray its subject matter without artifice. Similar to naturalism, authentic realist paintings and prints see an integration of true-to-life colors, meticulous detail and linear perspectives for accurate portrayals of the world.
Work that involves illusionistic techniques of realism dates back to the classical world, such as the deceptive trompe l’oeil used since ancient Greece. Art like this became especially popular in the 17th century when Dutch artists like Evert Collier painted objects that appeared real enough to touch. Realism as an artistic movement, however, usually refers to 19th-century French realist artists such as Honoré Daumier exploring social and political issues in biting lithographic prints, while the likes of Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet painting people — particularly the working class — with all their imperfections, navigating everyday urban life. This was a response to the dominant academic art tradition that favored grand paintings of myth and history.
By the turn of the 20th century, European artists, such as the Pre-Raphaelites, were experimenting with nearly photographic realism in their work, as seen in the attention to every botanical attribute of the flowers surrounding the drowned Ophelia painted by English artist John Everett Millais.
Although abstraction was the guiding style of 20th-century art, the realism trend in American modern art endured in Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth and other artists’ depictions of the complexities of the human experience. In the late 1960s, Photorealism emerged with artists like Chuck Close and Richard Estes giving their paintings the precision of a frame of film.
Contemporary artists such as Jordan Casteel, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Aliza Nisenbaum are now using the unvarnished realist approach for honest representations of people and their worlds. Alongside traditional mediums, technology such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and immersive installations are helping artists create new sensations of realism in art.
Find authentic realist paintings, sculptures, prints and more art on 1stDibs.