Naturalism Art and Paintings

In art, naturalism means painting things as they look to the eye, from direct observation, rather than idealized or stylized by convention. Tate calls it a broad 19th-century movement that represented things closer to the way we see them, pioneered in Britain by John Constable and often linked with painting out of doors. The Getty's art vocabulary adds that a naturalistic work need not dwell on flaws, so it can be faithful and still somewhat idealized. As a movement, Naturalism ran from the late 1870s to the 1890s and was led in France by Jules Bastien-Lepage.

Sources: Tate: Naturalism · Getty AAT: naturalism · Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: Jules Bastien-Lepage, Musée d'Orsay exhibition review

Naturalism began in France in the late 1870s and lasted through the 1890s. Bastien-Lepage's Hay Making was very popular at the Salon of 1878, and Émile Zola hailed it as the masterpiece of naturalism in painting, the Musée d'Orsay says. The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum says naturalism reached the height of its popularity in the late 1880s. By then Symbolism, whose name was coined in 1886, was turning away from the realistic depiction of the natural world seen in Realism, Impressionism and Naturalism, Tate says.

Sources: Musée d'Orsay: Hay Making (Google Arts & Culture) · Calouste Gulbenkian Museum: Les Bretonnes au Pardon (Google Arts & Culture) · Tate: Symbolism

The leading Naturalist was Jules Bastien-Lepage, whom a review of the Musée d'Orsay's 2007 retrospective calls the foremost naturalist painter; the exhibition catalogue traces his influence on Léon Lhermitte, Léon Frédéric, George Clausen and Akseli Gallen-Kallela. Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret's Breton scenes were naturalist successes at the Salon. In Britain, Tate names Clausen, Henry Herbert La Thangue, Edward Stott and the Newlyn School of Stanhope Forbes and Frank Bramley; in Norway, the Nasjonalmuseet counts Erik Werenskiold and Harriet Backer among the naturalists.

Sources: Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: Jules Bastien-Lepage, Musée d'Orsay exhibition review · Calouste Gulbenkian Museum: Les Bretonnes au Pardon (Google Arts & Culture) · Tate: Rural naturalism · Tate: Newlyn school · Nasjonalmuseet: Erik Werenskiold, Peasant Burial · Nasjonalmuseet: Harriet Backer, Christening in Tanum Church

Realism is mostly about what is painted, naturalism about how it looks. Tate defines Realism as the mid-19th-century movement that painted subjects from everyday life in a naturalistic manner, with a certain grittiness, and naturalism as representing things closer to the way we see them. The rural Naturalists of the 1880s were gentler: Tate says their tendency to sentimentality sets them apart from the grittier Realism of Gustave Courbet and his followers. The Getty's art vocabulary draws the same line, noting that naturalism need not focus on the flaws and imperfections a realist work may show.

Sources: Tate: Realism · Tate: Naturalism · Tate: Rural naturalism · Getty AAT: naturalism

Both painted out of doors and from life, but the Naturalists kept a careful finish and solid, detailed figures, while the Impressionists, Tate says, broke their brushwork into quick, separate dabs to catch fleeting light. The National Gallery of Victoria says Salon audiences liked Bastien-Lepage's October because it combined the high finish of an academic picture with the looser brushwork associated with the Impressionists. Edelfelt borrowed Impressionist devices such as complementary colors for The Luxembourg Gardens, yet worked on it for more than a year, the Ateneum says.

Sources: Tate: Impressionism · National Gallery of Victoria: October (Google Arts & Culture) · Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery: The Luxembourg Gardens (Google Arts & Culture)

Naturalist paintings show rural work and everyday life, with real, individual people painted close to how they look, often out of doors and in daylight. Tate links naturalism with plein-air painting and describes rural naturalism as scenes of country life in a realist, often sentimentalized manner. The Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo says painting outdoors was a key element of the naturalist's program, where truth challenged beauty as an artistic ideal. The Musée d'Orsay points to the high horizon, close framing and light palette of Bastien-Lepage's Hay Making as signs of modernity within the naturalist approach.

Sources: Tate: Naturalism · Tate: Rural naturalism · Nasjonalmuseet: Erik Werenskiold, Peasant Burial · Musée d'Orsay: Hay Making (Google Arts & Culture)

Rural naturalism is Tate's name for 19th-century paintings of country life in a realist, often sentimentalized manner. Tate says that tendency to sentiment distinguishes it from the grittier Realism of Courbet and his followers, and that in Britain it is exemplified by the Newlyn School and by George Clausen, Henry Herbert La Thangue and Edward Stott. In France, Bastien-Lepage painted the peasants of his own village, Damvillers; the National Gallery of Victoria says he despised city painters whose sentimental views of rustic life showed their ignorance of it.

Sources: Tate: Rural naturalism · National Gallery of Victoria: October (Google Arts & Culture) · Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: Jules Bastien-Lepage, Musée d'Orsay exhibition review

Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–1884) was the French painter who led Naturalism, and whose death at 36 ended a career of about a decade. A review of the Musée d'Orsay's 2007 retrospective calls him the foremost naturalist painter and his Joan of Arc, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the majestic icons of the 19th century. He painted large pictures of the peasants of his native village, Damvillers, such as Hay Making and October, and in London he became a magnet for English naturalists such as George Clausen and Henry Herbert La Thangue.

Sources: Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: Jules Bastien-Lepage, Musée d'Orsay exhibition review · The Met: Joan of Arc · Musée d'Orsay: Hay Making (Google Arts & Culture) · National Gallery of Victoria: October (Google Arts & Culture)

Plein air means painting finished pictures out of doors, in front of the subject, and it was central to Naturalism. Tate calls it an important technical approach in the development of naturalism, taken up widely by the rural naturalists and above all by the Newlyn School; a photograph shows Stanhope Forbes painting on a beach in high wind, his canvas and easel held down with guy ropes. In Finland, the Ateneum says, Edelfelt's Conveying the Child's Coffin (1879) was the first exhibited Finnish painting made entirely outdoors.

Sources: Tate: Plein air · Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery: Conveying a Child's Coffin (Google Arts & Culture)

The Newlyn School was a group of painters who settled in the Cornish fishing towns of Newlyn and St Ives from the early 1880s, led by Stanhope Forbes and Frank Bramley. Tate says they combined working directly from the subject, in the open air where they could, with scenes of rural life, above all the life of fishermen. It calls Forbes's The Health of the Bride (1889) and Bramley's A Hopeless Dawn (1888) quintessential Newlyn masterpieces.

Sources: Tate: Newlyn school · Tate: Plein air

Naturalism took strong root in Norway and Finland in the 1880s. The Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo calls Erik Werenskiold a naturalist and his Peasant Burial (1883–85), probably painted mostly outdoors, a principal work of Norwegian art, and says Harriet Backer, who lived in Paris from 1878 to 1888, is considered both a naturalist and an early impressionist. In Finland, Albert Edelfelt became an advocate of plein-air realism in the late 1870s, and in 1880 he was the first Finnish artist to win a medal at the Paris Salon, the Ateneum says.

Sources: Nasjonalmuseet: Erik Werenskiold, Peasant Burial · Nasjonalmuseet: Harriet Backer, Christening in Tanum Church · Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery: Conveying a Child's Coffin (Google Arts & Culture)

Well-known examples are Bastien-Lepage's Joan of Arc (1879) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and his Hay Making (1877) in the Musée d'Orsay, Jules Breton's The Song of the Lark (1884) in the Art Institute of Chicago and Dagnan-Bouveret's Breton Women at a Pardon (1887) in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. In Britain, Tate counts Frank Bramley's A Hopeless Dawn (1888) and Stanhope Forbes's The Health of the Bride (1889) as Newlyn masterpieces; in Finland, the Ateneum holds Edelfelt's Conveying the Child's Coffin (1879).

Sources: The Met: Joan of Arc · Musée d'Orsay: Hay Making (Google Arts & Culture) · Art Institute of Chicago · Calouste Gulbenkian Museum: Les Bretonnes au Pardon (Google Arts & Culture) · Tate: Newlyn school · Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery: Conveying a Child's Coffin (Google Arts & Culture)

In Paris, the Musée d'Orsay has Bastien-Lepage's Hay Making; in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has his Joan of Arc; and the Art Institute of Chicago has Breton's The Song of the Lark and Lhermitte's The Harvesters. The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne has Bastien-Lepage's October, the Ateneum in Helsinki has the naturalist pictures of Edelfelt and Gallen-Kallela shown on this page, the Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo has Werenskiold's Peasant Burial and Backer's Christening in Tanum Church, and the Skagens Museum in Denmark has Krøyer's Summer Evening on Skagen's Southern Beach.

Sources: Musée d'Orsay: Hay Making (Google Arts & Culture) · The Met: Joan of Arc · Art Institute of Chicago · Art Institute of Chicago: The Harvesters · National Gallery of Victoria: October (Google Arts & Culture) · Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery: The Luxembourg Gardens (Google Arts & Culture) · Nasjonalmuseet: Erik Werenskiold, Peasant Burial · Nasjonalmuseet: Harriet Backer, Christening in Tanum Church · Skagens Museum: Summer Evening on Skagen's Southern Beach (Google Arts & Culture)

Yes. Every painter named on this page died by 1947, so their paintings are in the public domain in the United States and in countries where copyright ends 70 years after the artist's death. You can download them free and use them for anything, including commercial projects. A few countries have their own rules on photographs of artworks, so check them if you publish outside the U.S.

Sources: Cornell University Library: Copyright Term and the Public Domain