Chaplin made his debut at the Salon with portraits, but he also painted landscapes, particularly the countryside of Auvergne. His early works, from 1848 to 1851, were painted in a manner characterized by an interest in realism, a style established in the French Second Republic, that had the motto "Liberté, égalité, fraternité", and was ruled for three years by the republican government of France from the 1848 Revolution until the 1851 coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. Realism was an artistic movement that began in France in the 1850s, after the 1848 Revolution. From the late 18th century Romanticism dominated French art and literature but was spurned by Realists, who revolted against the display of the emotions of the Romantic movement, seeking to depict real and characteristic contemporary individuals and situations with truth and accuracy.