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The emphasis on accurately representing the experiences of average working people that is characteristic of the realist style can be seen in The Gleaners, painted by Jean-Francois Millet, which depicts peasants picking stray wheat from a field after the harvest. This style can thus be seen as an effort to _____ what were regarded as the excesses of the romantic style evident in many paintings by Horace Vernet, which instead exaggerated their subjects' beauty or heroism while hiding all imperfection.