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"Realistic" redirects here. Realism is commonly defined as a concern for fact or reality and a rejection of the impractical and visionary. As a word in common use, however, realism is employed to suggest a wide variety of meanings, the choice among them depending on the context of use and the pertinent community of interpretation, from the arts, especially film, literature, and painting, to philosophy, politics, and international relations.
Realism in philosophy As a term of art in philosophy, realism refers to a thesis that general properties, technically known as universals, have a mode of existence or a form of reality that is in a certain sense independent of the things that possess them. Opposing theses, known as nominalism, and conceptualism, hold that universals are not real or do not properly exist, that only individuals and particulars exist, and that it is only the corresponding general concepts of thought or universal terms of language, serving as equivocal denotations of many particular things, that deceive the mind into thinking so. Philosophical realism is also referred to as Platonic realism or Scholastic realism, depending on the nuances of the particular variant in mind. In some versions of realism, in stark contrast to everyday usage, a distinction is drawn between existence and reality, based on the idea that potentials can be real but that only actuals can exist. In a separate context of discussion, realism is contrasted with both idealism and materialism, and is more controversially considered by others to be synonymous with the position in the philosophy of mind known as dualism. In recent transmogrifications of the word, realism is contrasted with anti-realism and irrealism. Increasingly these last disputes, too, are rejected as misleading, and some philosophers prefer to call the kind of realism espoused there metaphysical realism and eschew the whole debate in favour of simple naturalism or natural realism, which is not so much a theory as the position that these debates are ill-conceived, if not incoherent, and that there is no more to deciding what is really real than simply taking our words at face value. Realism in philosophy can also refer to other forms of realism such as moral realism and scientik Realism in the arts Realism in art and literature uses naturalistic tendencies as a tool to make a biting relevant political statement. Realism also refers to a mid-19th century cultural movement with its roots in France. The second half of the 19th century has been called the positivist age. It was an age of faith in all knowledge which would derive from science and scientific objective methods which could solve all human problems. In the visual arts this spirit is most obvious in the widespread rejection of Romantic subjectivism and imagination in favor of Realism - the accurate and apparently objective description of the ordinary, observable world, a change especially evident in painting. Positivist thinking is evident in the full range of artistic developments after 1850- from the introduction of realistic elements into academic art, from the emphasis on the phenomenon of light, to the development of photography and the application of new technologies in architecture and constructions. Realism sets as a goal not imitating past artistic achievements but the truthful and accurate depiction of the models that nature and contemporary life offer to the artist. The artificiality of both the Classicism and Romanticism in the academic art was unanimously rejected, and necessity to introduce contemporary to art found strong support. New idea was that ordinary people and everyday activities are worthy subjects for art. Artists - Realists attempted to portray the lives, appearances, problems, customs, and mores of the middle and lower classes, of the unexceptional, the ordinary, the humble, and the unadorned. They set themselves conscientiously to reproduce all to that point ignored aspects of contemporary life and society - its mental attitudes, physical settings, and material conditions. Realism in France appears after the 1848 Revolution. In France it expresses a taste for democracy. At the same time in England artists - Realists came before the public with the reaction against the Victorian materialism and the conventions of the Royal Academy in London. In spite of its social inclinations Realism produces no new style in architecture and few valuable sculptures.It was the time of introduction of new technologies in constructions. The revolutionary modular construction and largest spans in structural skeleton that could then be mass-produced - used on exhibition halls, railway stations; the use of cast iron as building material and invention of twisted-wire cable that extended main spans of bridges in Europe and United States. Less positive attitude toward technological progress can be seen in the first attempts to incorporate structural iron into architecture proper. We recognize a few Realism schools of painting: The Realists (1800 - 1899) This is a group of international artists in Paris which begin to devise new methods of pictorial representation. They are focused on scientific concepts of vision and the study of optical effects of light. The Realists express both a taste for democracy and rejection of the inherent old artistic tradition. The Realists felt that painters should work from the life round them. Indisputable honest, the Realists desecrated rules of artistic propriety with their new realistic portrayals of modern life. Artists: Marie Rosalie Bonheur (known as Rosa Bonheur), John Singleton Copley, Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas, Thomas Eakins, Ignace Henri Theodore Fantin-Latour, Wilhelm Leibl, Edouard Manet. Barbizon School (1840s - 1850s) Barbizon School was a group of French landscape artists one of first formed outside the Academy. They were named after the Forest of Fonteblau near the village of Barbizon where they got away from the revolutionary Paris to produce their art. They attempted to paint nature directly; Constable who pioneered in making landscape painting a faithful depiction of nature was their model. The Barbizon painters helped establish landscape and motif of country life as vital subjects for French artists. They also cherished an interest in visible reality, which became increasingly important to the later artistic styles. Artists in the group: Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny, Jean-François Millet, Pierre-Etienne-Théodore Rousseau. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848 - late 19th Century) In 1848 a group of English painters, poets and critics formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to reform art by rejecting practices of contemporary academic British Art. They have been considered the first avant-garde movement in art. They accepted the doctrine of imitation of nature, as central purpose of art. Instead of the Raphaelesque conventions taught at the Royal Academy, their central doctrine was that artists should seek to represent the natural world. They believed that the only great art was before high renaissance, before Raphael. He was representative of the time when painters would scarify the reality of the subject to their own ideals of beauty and morality. The Pre-Raphaelite Brothers condemned this art of idealization, and promoted works based on real landscapes and models, and paid intense attention to accuracy of detail and color. They advocated as well a moral approach to art, in keeping with a long British tradition established by Hogarth. The combination of didacticism and realism characterized the first phase of the movement. The landscape compositions were painted outdoors, what was an innovative approach at the time. The interest in the Middle Ages inaugurated the second, unofficial phase of Pre-Raphaelitism. Their subject matters were from medieval tales, bible stories, classical mythology, and nature. With technique of bright colors on a white background, they achieved great depth and brilliance. However, we can see now the curve from their immature rebelliousness, through the realistic painting of detail without idealization, to works of art that are finally more surreal than real. Their work cannot be realistic with the mythological matter and medieval tales that they chose - they can only be envisioned in the mind and do not exist outside of there. So they ended up closer to some other art rebellions. Philosophy and science Arts and literature Jurisprudence and law Politics and international relations | ||||||||
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