Realism

The Girl on the Rock in Sorrento (Fanciulla sulla roccia a Sorrento) is an 1871 painting by Italian artist Filippo Palizzi. Palizzi was deeply influenced by the return to Realism after Romanticism of the French Barbizon School of the 19th century. The Barbizons were concerned with light and simple rustic and genre scenes. Palizzi’s strong […]

Vanity is an 1870 genre painting by French artist Auguste Toulmouche who specialized in painting luxurious paintings of Paris’s upper class. The painting is in a private collection. Analysis of Toulmouche’s Vanity Here we see a young wealthy young woman wrapped up in a moment of self-adoration as a modern female Narcissus kisses her reflection.

Frederic Remington paints in 1889 a protagonist of the American frontier who turns to look at us in heroic fashion on horseback. Especially fine are the color tones of the horse and the light of the landscape. Frederic Remington’s An Indian Trapper is in the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

American painter Winslow Homer Crossing the Pasture (1871-2) depicts two small boys in a highly idealized American landscape. Looking out across an expanse inaccessible to the viewer, the boys are making a journey. The picture is perhaps an allegory of hope after the disastrous division of the American Civil War of the previous decade. Winslow

A View of the Artist’s House and Garden, in Mills Plains, Van Diemen’s Land, 1838 is an Australian Landscape painting by John Glover. Analysis of A View of the Artist’s House and Garden, in Mills Plains, Van Diemen’s Land Glover was an English-born Australian artist often referred to as the originator of Australian landscape painting.

Boy Carrying a Shaft is an 1895 painting by Polish artist Aleksander Gierymski. It is located in the National Museum in Wroclaw, Poland. Analysis of Boy Carrying a Shaft Aleksander Gierymski is seen as both a Realist and an Impressionist painter and in Boy Carrying a Shaft seems to straddle the boundaries between both. The

James Tissot was a popular French society painter that worked in a Realist style, which is expressed in A Passing Storm from 1876. In this painting he shows a scene, perhaps on a ship, where a girl seems perturbed and lies on a chaise lounge in the foreground, averting her gaze from the tempest outside.

William Merritt Chase paints the back of a nude, young, dark-haired female figure with a high degree of realism in contours of the body and the colours of the flesh. Her modesty is covered by a rich fabric which also makes the picture seem like an unveiling. The fact that she is unaware of the

Storks is a 1900 realist painting by Polish artist Jósef Chelmonskí. It is in the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland. Analysis of Chelmonskí’s Storks Chelmonskí came to be associated with an artistic movement known as Polish Patriotic Painting, at a time when the Polish territories did not have independence. Here perhaps a father and son

Abraham van Strij was a Dutch painter of the 18th and 19th centuries who continued the Dutch Golden Age tradition of genre scenes with Interior of an Inn from 1825. In this picture, painted in Realist style, a serving maid admonishes her customer, the seated soldier, with her raised finger. Given the red hue of

Carolus-Duran’s The Kiss, ‘Le Baiser’ in his native French, features a couple embracing, who are in fact artist himself and his fiancée. It is painted in the Realist style, as can be seen in the faces and floral details. Painted in 1868 when Carolus-Duran was 31, the couple is positioned close to the picture frame

Frederic Remington was a famed illustrator, painter and sculptor who specialised in depictions of the Wild West, The Scout Friends or Foes? is a pristine example of his work from some time between 1900 and 1905. His fame was such that other painters working in the same tradition became known as members of the School

George Bellows, who was touted as one of the most successful and famous of the American Realists, painted Frankie, the Organ Boy in 1907. He paints the boy with bold and thick brushstrokes, as can be seen in details of the hair, face, and hands. The gaze of the boy is active and his expression

This is John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Carolus-Duran a tribute to his teacher, Charles-Émile-Auguste Duran who was a renowned painter of society portraits. Here in 1879, Singer-Sargent adopts his teacher’s method by simultaneously drawing and painting while working. The expression the painter gives his master is one of expectant curiosity. Carolus-Duran was a prominent painter in

Winslow Homer specialised in Realism and painted in 1873 a simple scene at Gloucester Harbor in Massachusetts. Characterized as ‘an integrity of nature, the work of the influential American artist Homer dwelt on scenes of landscapes and seascapes that put humanity in a sometimes perilous relation to an all-encompassing natural power. In this work that

This is an 1886 portrait of Scottish socialite Mrs Cecil Wade by the American leading portraitist artist John Singer Sargent. Analysis of the Portrait of Mrs Cecil Wade John Singer Sargent was born in Florence, Italy to American parents and lived and worked much of his professional life in Europe. He painted this portrait of

American Henry Ossawa Tanner paints a scene of industry in realistic detail in his 1895 oil on canvas The Young Sabot Maker. The boy leans into his physical work and is completed occupied and concentrated. The older man looks on with a smiling pride at the effort and skill of his apprentice carving the shoe.

The Irritating Gentleman is an 1864 genre painting in the realist style by German artist Berthold Woltze. Analysis of The Irritating Gentleman Berthold Woltze’s The Irritating Gentleman depicts a girl dressed in the black of mourning with a tearful face that looks out to us with a resigned expression on her face, perhaps asking us

The Biglin Brothers Racing is an 1873 realist painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in the United States. Analysis of Eakins’ Biglin Brothers Racing The painting depicts the two men during a rowing race. The Biglin Brothers, James and Barney, were professional rowers at

The Uprising is an 1848 realist painting by French painter and sculptor Honoré Daumier. It is in the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, United States of America. The Uprising Analysis The Uprising has Honoré Daumier recounting the deprivation of the Parisian poor in 1848, a year when attempted revolution was prevalent in many European nations,