19th-Century Realism & Tonalism

1850–1910

Observation over invention. Corot's silver light, Whistler's nocturnes, Homer's Atlantic, Sargent's bravura — truth through paint.

Plein air and studio. New pigments (cobalt, viridian, zinc white). Photography influencing composition and tonality.

5 artists30 colors

1819–1877

French

Father of Realism. Painted life-size peasants — only what the eye can see.

Palette knife as much as brush. Earthy, material palette — stone, flesh, soil.

1796–1875

French

Painter of silver mist and trembling leaves. Bridge between classical landscape and Impressionism.

Distinctive silver-green palette. Feathery foliage technique. Morning and twilight light.

1834–1903

American

Art for art's sake. Nocturnes, arrangements, symphonies — painting as music. Sued Ruskin and won.

Extremely thin paint, often wiped down. Tonal rather than coloristic. Japanese influence in composition.

1856–1925

American

Greatest society portraitist of the Gilded Age. Madame X scandal. Bravura brushwork rivaling Velázquez.

Alla prima technique — single session, wet-into-wet. Could model an ear in a single loaded brushstroke.

1836–1910

American

Painter of the Atlantic — crashing waves, fishermen, survival. The most powerful seascapes in American art.

Late marine paintings use a limited palette of deep blue-greens, foam white, and rock grey. Watercolors from the tropics are brilliantly saturated.