Realism

When you consider realism it's actually no that astounding. What is amazing is the discovery of realism, or rather, the realisation that such art can exist. One would think that drawing from real life or drawing what one encounters in their daily life would be one of the first things to occurs in art, but ironically it is a relatively new phenomenon in the field. Working backwards from ones own imagination and trying to hold every day occurrences in high regards is apparently an innovative concept, and as impressionism and Romanticism were blooming in canopies of artistically conscious Europe, our good friend Gustave was down on the forest bottom depicticting the lower class like kings. Though Gustave was certainly not the first person to think of depicting lower or middle class subjects (Johannes Vermeer for starters was heavily praised for such works), he was the originator of the term, and liked to throw his talents into his appresors faces. After being denied twice to the Paris Salon he quit and made his own gallery, along with his own separate art movement complete with manifesto.