What is realism? In art and literature, this term means an objective reflection of reality through specific techniques and techniques that are inherent in a certain type of artistic creation. Realism, in turn, can take various forms, which depends on the chosen creative methods. For example, there are educational, critical, socialist and other types of realism. Each of these methods is distinguished by its features and trends.
In a broad sense, realism in art is defined as a trend in the development of artistic culture, which continues the selected traditions of world art. A measure of the realism of a work is its penetration into life, a reflection of the important aspects of everyday events in an artistic form.
In order to better understand what realism is, one should also understand the narrower meaning of this word. According to him, this is an artistic style that arose in the Enlightenment. The clearest and most thorough description of its main features can be found in critical realism of the 19th century and in socialist realism of the 20th century. In this sense, realism is engaged in the study of a person’s personality and its relationship with society, social status, and some external factors. We should not forget that realistic thinking has different manifestations in different genres and types of art.
Realism is different from other similar directions. For example, naturalism takes as its basis superficial similarity without affecting the underlying processes of reality, and abstract thinking expresses reality accurately, paying attention only to the essence of an element of an object or phenomenon. The artistic meaning of the art of realism is directly related to the measure of conformity of the chosen form to express a certain idea of the creator.
What is realism? Among the common features of the method is reliability in reproducing events, phenomena and objects. Despite this, this art is replete with a variety of ways of knowing and displaying reality. This will be confirmed by a long list of names of famous artists, writers and other artists who are unique in the chosen creative methods. All of them, from Rembrandt to Repin, prove that the possibilities of realism are incredibly wide and varied.
In the visual arts, a distinctive feature of realism is the appeal to the image of everyday life. The development of this direction is associated with the work of Enlightenment masters who criticized the social order. For example, in Russia it was the Wanderers who worked to establish the positions of realism in the historical and everyday genre, landscape and portrait paintings.
Very often, it is seen as the opposite of romanticism, whose representatives set out to create a new reality.
The critical realism that took place in the art of many European countries and the United States was guided by the depiction of the complex life of the lower strata of society, the opposition of the rich to the poor, and the sympathy of the dysfunctional fate of the destitute. Critical Russian realism gained momentum in the second half of the 19th century, embodied in the plays of P. Fedotov, artists I. Repin, I. Kramskoy and many others. The dominant theme in the work of these figures was a criticism of the injustice of public life.
Another manifestation is socialist realism (1930s - 1980s). It is considered the main artistic direction in the art of the USSR. The goal of socialist realism was to establish socialist ideals, images of new social relations and the people who take part in them. The tough program of this direction was based on the glorification of the revolution and its leaders, socialist construction and the Soviet worldview.
Later, the art of realism in different countries acquires national features, and various forms and directions are manifested within it. The possibilities of realistic methods are very diverse and wide, but they have a limit that limits them. As a holistic creative method, realism dominated in past centuries, today it has to struggle with those trends that limit its development. Thus, the question of what realism can have more than one answer, since this concept is very complex and versatile.