Deville 2 Tone

Joseph Vickers de Ville was an English painter of landscapes and rural subjects. A son of farmers Joseph and Mary Deville, he was born in Eaton, Derbyshire, but he is considered a Wolverhampton artist, as he lived most of his life in Compton, a suburb of Wolverhampton. He was in Wolverhampton by 1881, and the 1881 census shows that at that time his household included his widowed mother and brothers Richard and John. Vickers de Ville was not professionally trained and did not consider himself a professional artist, however, his artistic gift was recognized and appreciated. In Compton, he maintained a studio in Tettenhall Wood. From 1887, he exhibited at the Royal Academy. Between 1876 and 1920, 68 of his works were shown at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. He was later elected a full member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1917. Vickers de Ville worked in both oils and watercolors. His favorite subject was North Wales, where he first obtained his inspiration amid the grand and imposing scenery, with a particular inclination to coastal landscapes, streams and rivers and investigation of light effects in the open air. It was noticed that few can rival him in depicting torrent, rock, river and trees. His landscapes of the Cotswolds, Malvern, Cheshire and Staffordshire are also well known. Often they expressed the mood of melancholy and solitude, like his painting The Moonlight, which was to illustrate Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. This is possibly an influence of that. Vickers de Ville's exhibition was successfully held at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in 1915. It presented 64 paintings and numerous sketches, many of which were loaned by Scottish, Liverpool and London patrons. The exhibition was favorably reviewed and it was particularly mentioned that a great many of his pictures are in the United States, and others have found owners in France, Germany and South America. Most of them were bought by the Americans. The demand from abroad is one of the reasons why Wolverhampton people have been able to see so little of his work. In 1923, there was another exhibition of his drawings. Several paintings by Vickers de Ville have been preserved at Wolverhampton Art Gallery. His works also can be found at McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock, Sheffield Museum and Art Gallery and other public and private collections. Little is known about de Ville's personal life. He married in 1894, and with his wife, Mary had at least one child, a son Claude born in 1895. The 1901 census also shows a daughter named Gladys, born in about 1886, which is well before their marriage. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow Institute, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and Fine Art Society.

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.

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Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.

While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.

Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.

Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.

Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.

Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.