Although associated with the realist movement, he did not identify himself as realist or advocate the ideology of realism in the way Gustave Courbet and others did. The art historian Maurice Raynal commented on his relationship with realism "this was not outcome of methods he deliberately chose or took from others. The truth is that realism was both a second nature with him and the consequence of the life he led, Actually, however, he never set up as an adept of realism, indeed it never occurred to him to apply the term to his art: still less to repudiate it" At least one art historian, H. W. Janson placed him among the romantics, calling him "the one great Romantic artist who did not shrink from reality", in contrast to the historic, literary, and the Near Eastern subjects that characterized much of romantic painting. Jean Leymarie wrote "With the temperament of a Romantic and the approach of a Realist, Daumier belongs to the Barbizon generation, except that his domain was the human figure and not landscapes"