Realism Exhibitions

The 19th-Century Shift · c. 1840–1880

Ordinary life, unidealized

A deliberate turn away from idealism to the unvarnished truth of everyday life. Courbet, Millet, and Daumier painted peasants, workers, and the poor with the same gravity traditionally reserved for gods and kings. In doing so they challenged the social hierarchies embedded in centuries of Western art.