Realism (arts) Facts for Kids

This article is about Realism (disambiguation). For other uses, see Realism (arts) (disambiguation).

Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet, 1854. A Realist painting by Gustave Courbet

Realism in the arts is generally the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements. The term is often used interchangeably with naturalism, even though these terms are not synonymous. Naturalism, as an idea relating to visual representation in Western art, seeks to depict objects with the least possible amount of distortion and is tied to the development of linear perspective and illusionism in Renaissance Europe. Realism, while predicated upon naturalistic representation and a departure from the idealization of earlier academic art, refers to a specific art historical movement that originated in France in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1848. With artists like Gustave Courbet capitalizing on the mundane, ugly or sordid, realism was motivated by the renewed interest in the common man and the rise of leftist politics. The Realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate French literature and art, with roots in the late 18th century.

In 19th-century Europe, "Naturalism" or the "Naturalist school" was somewhat artificially erected as a term representing a breakaway sub-movement of realism, that attempted (not wholly successfully) to distinguish itself from its parent by its avoidance of politics and social issues, and liked to proclaim a quasi-scientific basis, playing on the sense of "naturalist" as a student of natural history, as the biological sciences were then generally known.

There have been various movements invoking realism in the other arts, such as the opera style of verismo, literary realism, theatrical realism, and Italian neorealist cinema.

Images for kids

Francisco Goya, Charles IV of Spain and His Family, 1800–01
Eilif Peterssen, The Salmon Fisher, 1889
Henri Biva, c. 1905–06, Matin à Villeneuve (From Waters Edge), oil on canvas, 151.1 x 125.1 cm.
Lord Leighton's Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna of 1853–55 is at the end of a long tradition of illusionism in painting, but is not Realist in the sense of Courbet's work of the same period.
Bas-de-page of the Baptism of Christ, "Hand G" (Jan van Eyck?), Turin-Milan Hours. An advanced illusionistic work for c. 1425, with the dove of the Holy Ghost in the sky.
Woodcutting, miniature from a set of Labours of the Months by Simon Bening, c. 1550
Late Gothic Pietà from Lubiąż in Lower Silesia, Poland, now in National Museum in Warsaw
Jean-François Raffaëlli, Outskirts of Paris, 1880s
William Bliss Baker, American Naturalist painter, Fallen Monarchs, 1886
Pekka Halonen, Finnish Naturalist, Pioneers in Karelia, 1900
Diego Velázquez, The Farmers' Lunch, c. 1620
Adriaen Brouwer, Interior of a Tavern, c. 1630
Quiringh van Brekelenkam, Interior of a Tailor's Shop, 1653
Giacomo Ceruti, Women Working on Pillow Lace, 1720s
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Woman Cleaning Turnips, c. 1738, Alte Pinakothek.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Laundress, 1761
Sir Luke Fildes, The Widower, 1876
William Bell Scott Iron and Coal, 1855–1860
Juan Manuel Blanes, Yellow Fever Episode. 1871
Albert Edelfelt, The Luxembourg Gardens. 1887
Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers, 1849
Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857
Honoré Daumier, The Chess Players, 1863
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Young Girl Reading, 1868
Jules Bastien-Lepage, October, 1878, National Gallery of Victoria
Aleksander Gierymski Feast of Trumpets, 1884
Vasily Perov, The Drowned, 1867
Vladimir Makovsky, "Philanthropists", 1874
Ilya Repin, Religious Procession in Kursk Province, 1880–1883
Hubert von Herkomer, Hard Times 1885

Realism (arts) facts for kids

Images for kids

See also