Realism

Realism

Linda Nochlin​

Setting Realism in its social and historical context, the author discusses the crucial paradox posed by Realist works of art – notably in the revolutionary paintings of Courbet, the works of Manet, Degas and Monet, of the Pre-Raphaelites and other English, American, German and Italian Realists.

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Oil Painting Techniques and Materials

Harold Speed​

“In any exhibition of amateur work . . . it is not at all unusual to find many charming water-colour drawings, but . . . it is very rarely that the work in the oil medium is anything but dull, dead, and lacking in all vitality and charm.” — Harold Speed

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Realism in the Age of Impressionism

Marnin Young​

The late 1870s and early 1880s were watershed years in the history of French painting. As outgoing economic and social structures were being replaced by a capitalist, measured time, Impressionist artists sought to create works that could be perceived in an instant, capturing the sensations of rapidly transforming modern life.

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Gustave Courbet

Sylvain Amic​

Nowadays it is difficult to conceive of the impact that Gustave Courbet’s paintings made on French art of the mid-nineteenth century. At once casting himself as revolutionary, bohemian and peasant, Courbet (1819-1877) overturned a deeply-entrenched tradition of academic painting in France, and, eschewing the Romanticism of Delacroix and the NeoClassicism of Ingres, coined instead an idiom he named “Realism.”

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Modernism, Criticism, Realism

Charles Harrison​

MODERNISM, CRITICISM, REALISM extracts from writings on art, aesthetics, psychology, epistemology language, philosophy and philosophy of science, a wide range of methods, problems and critiques relevant to the contemporary study of art and art history.

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Caravaggio: The Art of Realism

John Varriano​

The dramatic realism of Caravaggio’s art has fascinated viewers since the seventeenth century. Yet no prior monograph presents the thorough investigation of Caravaggio’s “realism” ventured in John Varriano’s remarkable book. Forgoing the “life and works” format of most earlier monographs, Varriano concentrates on uncovering the principles and practices―the intellect and the imagination―that guided Caravaggio’s eye and brush as he made some of the most controversial paintings in the history of art.

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Romanticism and Realism

Charles Rosen and Henri Zerner​

Traces the split during the early nineteenth century between avant-garde and academic art, examines the work of Caspar David Friedrich, Thomas Bewick, and Thomas Couture, and discusses the impact of photography on art. 

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Color and Light

James Gurney​

James Gurney, New York Times best-selling author and artist of the Dinotopia series, follows Imaginative Realism with his second art-instruction book, Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter.

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Jan Van Eyck

Till-Holger Borchert​

Often imitated but never equaled, Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441) left an indelible impression on Renaissance art and paved the way for future realist painters. With its unprecedented precision and masterful use of color, Arnolfini Double Portrait, depicting the wedding of a young couple, is testament to the mastery of the Flemish painter and leader of the Early Netherlandish school.

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