Social realism facts for kids
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.
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Images for kids
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Caravaggio, St Jerome, (1608) Italy
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Eugene Delacroix, Woman in a Hospital for the Insane, (early 1800s) France
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Courbet, The Stone Breaker. (1849) France
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Ilya Repin, Fisher Girl (1874) Russia
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Manet, Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, 1868
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Giovanni Fattori, Tired old horse, (about 1885) Italy
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Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, (1885) Netherlands
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George Bellows, Dempsey and Firpo, (1928) US
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Grant Wood's American Gothic, 1930, has become a widely known (and often parodied) icon of social realism.
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Ben Shahn, Register to Vote, Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) poster, 1946
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Lenin in Smolny, Isaak Brodsky, 1930.
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Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936. A portrait of Florence Owens Thompson (1903-1983).
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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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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, Mexican muralism movement
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David Alfaro Siqueiros, Unfinished Mural, c. 1940s, in Escuela de Bellas Artes, (School of Fine Arts), a cultural center in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
