Social realism facts for kids

Goya, The Third of May, 1808, (1814) Spain

Social realism is a style of art, fiction, movies and plays. It describes the daily life of workers and poor people. Social realist artists try to show people and their lives in a realistic way. This means that they often show things which are not beautiful or attractive. They may show people who are elderly, sick, sad, insane or have a disability. This does not mean that a Realist work of art or literature is ugly. It can be made beautiful by the way that the artist or writer creates it.

Social realism art does not belong to one period of history, but has been the style of some artists in different centuries and different countries. Caravaggio, who was a late Renaissance artist, painted "Realist" pictures. Several Spanish painters were "Realists": Velazquez, Esteban Murillo and Francisco de Goya. There were many realist painters in the 19th century, including Gustave Courbet in France and Luke Fildes in England.

Social Realism was popular in Russian art and literature. In the 20th century it became the main type of literature in the Soviet Union. It was also used by David Siqueiros to depict daily struggles of the people in his country, Mexico.

Other pages

• Gustave Courbet
• Edouard Manet
• Impressionism

Images for kids

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  Grant Wood's magnum opus American Gothic, 1930, has become a widely known (and often parodied) icon of social realism.

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  Charles de Groux, The blessing 1860.

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  Gustave Courbet, A Burial At Ornans

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  Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936. A portrait of Florence Owens Thompson (1903-1983). An iconic photo of The Great Depression.

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  Anton Refregier's Beating the Chinese mural in San Francisco's Rincon Center depicts the ethnic violence in the San Francisco riot of 1877

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  Bruno Caruso, News Stand, ink (1952)

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  Ilya Repin, Barge Haulers on the Volga 1870–1873

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  Lenin in Smolny, Isaak Brodsky, 1930.

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  Thomas Hart Benton, People of Chilmark, 1920, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC.

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  Maxine Albro, California (mural), 1934, Coit Tower, San Francisco

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  Walker Evans, Floyd Burroughs, Alabama cotton Sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama, c. 1935–1936, photograph

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  Ben Shahn, Detail of The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti (1967, mosaic), Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

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  Walker Evans, Allie Mae Burroughs, Wife of a Cotton Sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama, c. 1935–1936, photograph

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  Arthur Rothstein, A Farmer and His Two Sons During a Dust Storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936, photograph considered as an icon of the Dust Bowl

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  Diego Rivera, Recreation of Man at the Crossroads (renamed Man, Controller of the Universe), originally created in 1934

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  Constantin Meunier, Miner at the Exit of the Shaft, 1880s, Meunier Museum, Brussels

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  Eugène Laermans, Emigrants, central panel, 1896, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

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  Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters

See also

In Spanish: Realismo social para niños