Realism in ArtKey Characteristics

1. Disenchanted with Romanticism2. Focused on the daily concerns of real people such as

workers and peasants.3. Criticized the cruelty of industrial life and the greed

and insensitivity of the wealthy.

Gustave CourbetThe Stone Breakers

Gustave CourbetThe Stone Breakers

This is realism in art because it focuses on the cruelty of industrial life.

Honore DaumierThe Third Class Carriage

Honore DaumierThe Third Class Carriage

This is realism because it depicts the daily concerns of workers and peasants and also shows the insensitivity of the wealthy.

Edouard Manet Olympia

Edouard Manet OlympiaOlympia is a painting of a reclining nude woman, attended by a maid and a black cat, gazing mysteriously at the viewer. Why were visitors to the Paris gallery, already quite familiar with art featuring the naked body, so outraged by the painting that the gallery was forced to hire two policemen to protect the canvas? The objections to Olympia had more to do with the realism of the subject matter than the fact that the model was nude. While Olympia's pose had classic precedents, the subject of the painting represented a prostitute. In the painting, the maid offers the courtesan a bouquet of flowers, presumably a gift from a client, not the sort of scene previously depicted in the art of the era. Viewers weren't sure of Manet's motives. Was he trying to produce a serious work of art? Was Olympia an attempt to parody other paintings? Or, worst of all, was he mocking them?

Leading Realist AuthorsCharles Dickens, Hard TimesGustave Flaubert, Madame BovaryHenrik Ibsen, A Doll’s HouseFyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

Emile ZolaEmile Zola was responsible for turning realism into a literary movement. Zola published twenty novels that explored subjects not ordinarily treated in literature, including alcoholism, prostitution, and the problems of organizing labor.

Edouard Manet’s painting of Emile Zola

Henrik IbsenIn Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, he carries realism into a presentation of domestic life. Its chief character, Nora, has a narrow-minded husband who cannot tolerate independence of character or thought on her part. She finally leaves him, slamming the door behind her.

Fyodor DostoyevskyCrime and Punishment

This Russian story is about Rodion Romanivich and the internal moral struggle he faced after he committed a crime.

It is an example of realism in literature because it focused on the daily concerns of real people such as workers and peasants.