Pend Oreille
1850s Realist Landscape Prints
Lithograph
People Also Browsed
Late 19th Century Hudson River School Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1910s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Canvas
Early 20th Century English Paintings
Canvas, Paint, Wood
Late 19th Century Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Watercolor, Charcoal
Vintage 1950s American Folk Art Paintings
Canvas, Wood, Paint
Mid-19th Century Naturalistic Portrait Prints
Lithograph
1830s Naturalistic Portrait Prints
Engraving
Late 20th Century American Classical Prints
Paper
Antique Mid-19th Century English Baroque Paintings
Canvas, Giltwood
Early 20th Century Moroccan Other Paintings
Canvas
Mid-19th Century Naturalistic Portrait Prints
Engraving
2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
Canvas, Mixed Media, Oil, Acrylic
19th Century Post-Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Watercolor
2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings
Canvas, Mixed Media, Oil, Acrylic
Vintage 1910s American Photography
Paper
Antique 19th Century Irish Romantic Paintings
Canvas, Paint
Recent Sales
Late 20th Century Realist Figurative Sculptures
Marble, Bronze
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.