Discover figurative paintings for sale online today. Whether you’re looking for hyper-realism and technical brilliance or experimental works to diversify your collection, you can find and buy or rent figurative paintings right here. From Figurative Landscape Paintings to Figurative Portraits, our selection has something for everyone.
See the city through the eyes of Georgia Peskett, a figurative artist trained in London and with experience living abroad in New York City. Her slightly blurred images capture the rush of modern life, showcasing the lives of normal people as they navigate the city. The everyday nature of the subjects and beautifully muted colour palette of her paintings makes for effective artwork that is easily relatable for anyone with experience of urban living.
For a journey into a bright and colourful world, take a look at Stella Kapezanou, a Greek artist working between London and Athens. With a vibrant colour palette and a touch of irony, she paints images of a modern consumer society, adding elements of darkness and complexity through the uneasy expressions of her subjects. There’s a touch of Frida Kahlo in her use of colour and the presence of animals in her paintings.
A Brief History of Figurative Paintings
Figurative art is any work that is derived from real world objects, as opposed to abstract art that uses line, colour and form to abstract away from reality. Figurative painting in particular is one of the most popular art forms, bringing together artists as diverse as Lucian Freud and Pablo Picasso. These paintings vary in their degree of realism and may deal with a broad scope of subjects, from rugged landscapes to human subjects, making figurative painting an exciting medium to explore.
Some of the earliest experiments with art can be classified as figurative paintings. Paeleolithic cave paintings show humans alongside wide animals, demonstrating the beginnings of the human desire to capture the world around us. This desire has persisted throughout the history of art, motivating some of the greatest artists of every period. Some of the best examples of figurative painting are from the Renaissance period when artists such as Botticelli and Da Vinci produced works showing important religious scenes and references to classical antiquity.
Not all figurative art has to be entirely realistic, and elements of fantasy may be introduced. Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist whose radical ideas and paintings redefined what it meant to be a figurative painter. Kahlo mainly produced self-portraits, using surrealist elements in her work such as painting herself as a deer or with snakes for hair. The result was a striking body of work that dealt with questions of feminism, self-identity and postcolonialism in a unique way. Her art is a reminder that figurative paintings do not have to stick so strictly to realism, and that there is great scope for creativity within the genre.
