As a reaction to many thing happening in the 19th Century (including the industrial revolution, the popularization of the camera, Romanticism, etc.) some artists sought a more realistic path. These advocates of Realism popularlized a new kind of art that projected truths that might either compete directly with the camera or actually exceed what the camera was capable of. This article from the Metropolitan Museum of art gives a great overview of this movement.
Article: Nineteenth Century French Realism
Humanities Scholars 