Realism first appeared as a movement in painting in the 1830s, though its influence was felt more strongly after 1850. In Europe, painters who advocated Realism painted scenes of everyday life and people, rather than the dramatic (and imagined) historical scenes that were popular among the Romantics who dominated the period.
In the U.S., this impulse showed up dramatically in the nature drawings of John James Audubon (for whom today’s Audubon Society is named. Audubon's major work, The Birds of North America, was published between 1827 and 1839.
Incidentally, the photo above is of the recently famous ivory billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct but rediscovered in 2007.
