Realism was stimulated by several intellectual developments in the first half of the 19th century. Probably inspired by
Diego Velázquez's Las Meninas, the first seeds of
Realism in the modern period were sown by
Francisco Goya in his painting
The Family of Charles IV. Attempts at
Realism have been made periodically through out history in all the arts; the term , however was not consciously adopted as an aesthetic program until the mid-19th century in France when it became major trend in French novels and paintings between 1850 and 1880.
The French proponents of realism rejected the artificiality of both the Classicism and Romanticism of the academies, insisting the necessity for contemporaneity in an effective work of art:
" They attempted to portray the lives, appearances, problems, customs, and mores of the middle and lower classes, of the unexceptional, the ordinary, the humble, and the unadorned. Indeed, they conscientiously set themselves to reproducing all the hitherto-ignored aspects of contemporary life and society--its mental attitudes, physical settings, and material conditions."<
Encyclopædia Britannica
Some artistc examples from that era:
Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857.
Honoré Daumier, Third-class Carriage, c. 1862.
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (Nadar), Sarah Bernhardt, c. 1864.
Edouard Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, 1863.
In art a clearly defined realist school never evolved, but manefested itself at various times simply meant that "ugly" ogjects are represented as opposed to those considered "beautiful." Art used to descibe the humble life, the term was implied as a socila critism of social conditions.
Later versions of realism in art include surrealism and magic realism. Today, the term realist is applied in the most general sense, to any nonabstract work of art.
Justus, Kevin. "Art and Culture II." Tucson , Arizona.
1992. (Lecture presented at Pima Community College.)
De La Croix, Horst, Richard D. Tansey, and Diane Kirkpatrick.
Art Through the Ages. University of Michigan: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
1991.