Gretchen Guard Paintings
1970s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Watercolor, Paper
1970s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Watercolor, Paper
People Also Browsed
2010s Neo-Expressionist Animal Paintings
Oil, Wood Panel
Mid-20th Century British Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Teak
2010s German Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century British Mid-Century Modern Sideboards
Teak
Vintage 1960s English Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
Teak
Late 19th Century Hudson River School Landscape Paintings
Oil, Canvas
Mid-20th Century British Mid-Century Modern Corner Cupboards
Teak
Early 1900s Realist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Canvas
1860s Hudson River School Landscape Paintings
Oil, Canvas
Early 1900s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Panel
Vintage 1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Nesting Tables and Stacking Tables
Teak
19th Century Old Masters Landscape Paintings
Oil
Mid-20th Century Realist Landscape Paintings
Oil
Mid-20th Century American Queen Anne End Tables
Mahogany
2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings
Cotton Canvas, Acrylic, Oil
Recent Sales
1990s Realist Landscape Paintings
Paper, Watercolor
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.
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