The painters of the Barbizon school were part of a movement toward realism in art. This movement grew out of the Romantic Movement, the most popular style at the time. From about 1830 to 1870, the Barbizon school was around. It is named after the French village of Barbizon, near the Forest of Fontainebleau and where many artists met. Most of their paintings were of landscapes, but some also painted landscapes with farmworkers and scenes of everyday life in villages. This style's colors, tones, loose brushwork, and soft shapes are the most noticeable. 

Théodore Rousseau, Charles-Francois Daubigny, Jules Dupré, Constant Troyon, Charles Jacque, and Narcisse Virgilio Daz were the leaders of the Barbizon school. Jean-Francois Millet lived in Barbizon from 1849, but he was different from the other artists because he liked to paint people in landscapes. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was the first artist to paint in the forest for the first time in 1829. However, British art historian Harold Osborne said that "his work has a poetic and literary quality that sets him apart." Henri Harpignies, Albert Charpin, Francois-Louis Francais, and Émile van Marcke are among the other artists who were part of the school. They were often students of the leading group.

Many artists also made prints, mostly with etching, and most artists who used the semi-photographic cliché Verre technique were part of this group. In the 1850s, the school was the start of a new wave of etching in France.

This art also influenced painters in other countries. Starting in the late 1800s, many artists from Austria-Hungary went to Paris to learn about the new styles. The Hungarian painter János Thorman went to school in Paris as a young man. In 1896, he was one of the people who started the Nagybánya artists' colony in what is now Baia Mare, Romania. This colony brought impressionism to Hungary. 

In 1849, Karl Bodmer, born in Switzerland, moved to Barbizon. In the 1870s, another Hungarian named László Paál lived in Barbizon.

The Barbizon painters also had a significant effect on American landscape painting. This was done by people like William Morris Hunt, who made the American Barbizon school. Several Hudson River School artists or artists from the same time studied Barbizon paintings because of their loose brushwork and emotional power. One famous person who did this was George Inness, who tried to write like Rousseau. The Barbizon school of painting also affected landscape painting in California. Percy Gray carefully looked at Rousseau's paintings and other artists he saw at traveling shows to help him paint the hills and coast of California. Percival Rosseau (1859–1937), born in Louisiana and went to the Academie Julien, painted pictures of hunting dogs that show the influence of the Barbizon painters.