Edward_Hopper-Nighthawks-1942.jpg (JPEG Image, 2362x1292 pixels) - Scaled (42%) Untitled. Untitled. Realism in American Literature. Realism Art Movement: History, Characteristics of Naturalism. Realist Artists Famous painters, strongly associated with the 19th century Realist movement include: Jean-Francois Millet (1814-75), Gustave Courbet (1819-77), Honore Daumier (1808-79). However, many more were influenced by Realism without allowing it to dominate their work. An interesting example is the Russian painter Ilya Repin (1844-1930), who produced outstanding realist style works such as Bargemen on the Volga (1870), as well as Krestny Khod (Religious Procession) in Kursk Gubernia (1883). The realist style was taken up and adapted by French Impressionists like Edgar Degas (for example, in his picture The Absinthe Drinker), as well as by other exponents of 19th century Realism, see Realist Artists. The Germanic Biedermeier style of Romantic realism - a comforting domestic idiom popular in Germany, Austria and Denmark, not unlike the seventeenth century Dutch Realism School - is discussed in German Art, 19th Century.
Famous 19th Century Realist Paintings. Hopper, Edward. Edward Hopper was one of the foremost American realists of the twentieth century. In etchings, watercolors, and oil paintings, he portrayed ordinary places--drugstores, apartment houses, and small towns. Both commonplace and mysterious, these haunting images led many to praise him as the most American of painters. Hopper's career blossomed during the 1920s, when critics were calling for a distinctly American art. By the 1930s he was hailed as one of the great American Scene painters, along with Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton.
Hopper insisted, however, that his work was primarily an expression of his personal feelings rather than an attempt to portray a national experience. Hopper was born in Nyack, New York. Hopper established early the style and subject matter that brought him fame. [This is an excerpt from the interactive companion to the videodisc American Art from the National Gallery of Art.] Edward Hopper: American Urban Genre-Painter. Recognition and Commercial Success The 1920s finally brought Hopper the breakthrough he sought.
His etchings began to receive a degree of public recognition, and his oil painting (as in New York Interior, 1921; New York Restaurant, 1922) - if not yet appreciated by curators and exhibition juries - was becoming more inspired. He also began painting watercolours outdoors during the summer at Gloucester, a small town on the Massachusetts coast, except that while other painters were fully absorbed painting seascapes and scenic views, Hopper was fascinated by the large Victorian houses built by rich sea captains during the previous century. In 1923, Hopper started dating Josephine Nivison, a fellow artist from his student days, whom he married a year later. Her vivacity, dedication and strength of personality proved the key factor in shaping Hopper's future as an artist.
In 1925 Hopper produced and sold The House by the Railroad, his first outstanding oil painting. Later Exhibitions. Edward Hopper. "Edward Hopper, the best-known American realist of the inter-war period, once said: 'The man's the work. Something doesn't come out of nothing.' This offers a clue to interpreting the work of an artist who was not only intensely private, but who made solitude and introspection important themes in his painting. "He was born in the small Hudson River town of Nyack, New York State, on 22 July 1882. His family were solidly middle-class: his father owned a dry goods store where the young Hopper sometimes worked after school. Whom did I meet?
"In addition to spending some months in Paris, he visited London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels. "Hopper had settled in Greenwich Village, which was to be his base for the rest of his life, and in 1923 he renewed his friendship with a neighbour, Jo Nivison, whom he had known when they were fellow students under Chase and Henri. "From the time of his marriage, Hopper's professional fortunes changed.