Realism can be regarded from the point of view of historical influence of previous movements and according to the historical impact on other successive movements and trends. The dictionary article gives the definition of realism as “the theory or practice of fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization” (“Realism” 1). Thus the realistic movement in painting presupposes the real description of life, people and of events. The paintings of authors representing the movement of realism are extremely vivid and are likely to create an impression of presence in the painting while observing it. The works of artists who painted in realistic style are very true to life and make the observers admire those people, landscapes and settings. The realistic paintings are often depicting people in different settings, some of them are depicted sitting for the portrait, others, like the woman on the Edgar Degas’ painting “After the Bath: Woman Drying her feet”, do not seem to know that the whole audience is observing her figure, when she dries her feet after the bath. Realism can be characterized by exact, beautified, and particular depiction of natural landscapes and life of contemporary people. One of the basic features of the movement is expression of physical appearance rather than idealization of different people; attempts to make them better than they appear. The movement of realism was spread not only in Europe; the American authors are likely to have created paintings of this trend as well. The movement of realism began developing in the middle of the 19 th century. The authors tried not to idealize the objects painted in order to preserve natural look and harmony of colors in the sense of understanding. Artists depicted ordinary images which were not always likely to satisfy tests of the observers and did not correspond to common notion of pictures, because other movements depicted people and nature in idealized or changed way. Before the movement became popular and well-known the portraits created the images of noble, famous and rich men and women, their families, and children. Realists began to depict the world as it appeared and as other common people perceived it (Stremmel 6). There are some different schools or as they are also called trends that characterize the movement of realism in painting. Thus we should mention the Realists, which represented the new techniques of representation of the actual world; this school was marked by the works of such famous artists as Marie Rosalie Bonheur, Gustave Coubert, Edgar Degas, Thomas Eakins and other bright creators of the realistic history of that time. These painters depicted the world from the point of view of scientific ideas of physical vision. The next school of this movement covers the middle of the 19 th century, and stands for realistic depiction of nature and natural phenomena by means of painting nature directly from the real world. The main representatives of the movement are Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny, Pierre-Etienne-Théodore Rousseau and others. And the last school of realistic movement is represented by a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which existed in the second half of the 19 th century. The main representatives of t