Theodor Farmer

Franz Defregger, born in 1835 in Ederhof, Germany, was the son of a wealthy farmer, and his formal education began with a carving apprenticeship in Innsbruck under Michael Stolz. Stolz soon recognized his artistic talent and organized a meeting with artist Karl Theodor von Piloty. On von Piloty's suggestion, Defregger attended the preparatory class at the Kunstgewerbeschule (Munich Academy) under Hermann Dyck and switched to Hermann Anschütz' painting class at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in autumn of 1861. He then attended the "Kunstgewerbeverein" (Munich School of Arts & Crafts). After studying in Paris for 18 months, Defregger spent two years in Tyrol. In 1867, he painted the study Der verwundete Jäger, which helped him to be accepted as von Piloty's pupil. Defregger worked in von Piloty's Munich studio, studying historical painting from the master. He soon became one of the most popular genre-painters of the Munich School and had an academic influence. 

Defregger's oeuvre consisted of mostly sentimental, idealized motifs of peasant life and dramatic scenes from Tyrol's struggle for freedom, which made him a favorite in the Munich salon society. For many years it was Defregger’s works which determined the image of Tyrol for the outside world. In the 1880s, his paintings developed into a more folksy-narrative style. From 1878–1910, Defregger was a professor at the Munich Academy. He was an honorary member of the Vienna and Berlin Academies and ennobled in 1883. Franz von Defregger passed away in 1921.

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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