- What is Realism?
- Historical context of realism
- Characteristics of realism
- Art in realism
- Literary realism
- Authors and representatives of realism
- Magical realism
We explain what realism is, what its historical context and its characteristics are like. In addition, the art, literature and the authors of realism.
What is Realism?
By realism we mean an aesthetic and artistic trend, fundamentally literary, pictorial and sculptural, which aspires to the most exact similarity or correlation between the forms of art and representation, and the very reality that inspires them. That is, a trend that values the resemblance of a artwork to the real world it represents.
This aesthetic doctrine formally emerged in France in the 19th century, under the influence of the rationalism and the tradition of the Illustration French, which privileged the human intellect and knowledge of reality over emotions and the subjective world.
However, realistic considerations can be found in the art forms of almost all eras, from the prehistory. And generally speaking, realism tends to be opposed to other forms of art such as abstractionism, neoclassicism, the idealism or, in the specific case of literature, to the subjective forms of romanticism.
Roughly, realistic art is recognized, whatever its discipline, because it tries to represent reality in the most plausible way possible, preferring everyday situations and discarding the heroic, in favor of themes more attached to the mundane, to the common. In many ways it has been thought of as a way of understanding and criticizing the societies contemporary to the artist, which requires, among other things, objectivity.
Historical context of realism
Trends towards realism and towards abstractionism or fantasy have often clashed throughout the history of art. Thus, the appearance and expansion of romanticism between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a movement opposed to what was proposed by the enlightened and rationalist tradition of France at the time, prompted at the same time a contrary reaction, which would reject the sometimes mythological exoticisms that they cultivated. the German and English romantics. This new school would be realism, and its objective would be the search for art in the everyday life of the human being, in the conflicts of class characteristic of the time and of the social changes inspired by the French Revolution from 1789.
Thus, the rise of journalism, the theories of Auguste Comte, and Darwin's evolutionary theory were important drivers of faith in human reason and the progress of civilization through scientific advancement. Therefore, realism was much more than a mere aesthetic reaction: it was also the application of the philosophy positivist art, aspiring to make the artist a character committed to the portrait of his culture and from his time, which would address hitherto unknown issues, without escapist fantasies or daydreams.
Thus many realisms were born, such as socialist realism, committed to the revolutionary political cause and the social novel; or the kitchen sink realism, a trend that wanted to investigate the dirtiest, ugliest and most ordinary of the reality.
Characteristics of realism
Realist art proposes a look focused on the human being and his daily existence, turning his back on mythological, religious, fantastic and dreamlike themes, preferring instead social and political denunciation. This led to pictorial techniques that aspired to objectivity: the almost photographic reproduction of the observed, or the long and meticulous literary descriptions that tried to exhaust the observable through words.
The characters and favorite scenes of realism were always the most mundane, generally starring the common people, if not by the dispossessed classes, who were represented in their greatest fidelity, assuming art as a vehicle to capture the real life of those of below: the peasantry, the nascent working classes, etc.
Much of what realism was in painting, served for the subsequent emergence of the impressionism, and its principles were carried even further by the coming naturalism, in its many meanings and aspects.
Art in realism
The Photography It was already making its first appearances when realism became the prevailing school, so in one way or another they aspired to an accuracy, objectivity and level of detail in art that had never been possible before, thanks to scientific innovations, and that in the case of painting and sculpture, then led to the hyperrealism of the twentieth century.
Moving away from romantic motifs, realistic art pointed to a local perspective, manners, which also coincided with the emergence of numerous nationalist movements in the Europe 19th century. Obviously, his paintings are always figurative, far from abstraction, and his motives are always explainable in secular, almost scientific terms.
Literary realism
For its part, literary realism aimed at less ideal and more truthful writing models, which moved away from the sensitivity and imagination of the authors, to commit to the observation of the world around them, in its social, economic and political details. It was hoped that a writer would study society just as a doctor would study the human body.
As for the forms, realism privileged the simple, direct, sober style, which opened spaces for the reproduction of people's daily speech and for long and detailed descriptions of objects, environments and characters. This resulted in long paragraphs with many subordinate clauses, as well as a language "Invisible" that did not have many twists, metaphorizations or eccentricities, since the important thing was not the author, but the reality described.
Finally, in the narrative, a omniscient narrator, capable of explaining to the last detail why what was happening and instructing the reader in the social and economic issues that involve its history. This also led to the appearance of archetypal characters, when not stereotypical, who ended up being similar in so recurrent: the young prostitute, the working communist, the homeless, etc.
Authors and representatives of realism
Some important representatives of this trend in the various artistic disciplines are:
- Painting. The French Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), Thomas Couture (1815-1879), Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875), Jules Breton (1827-1906), as well as many other representatives from England, Germany, Italy and the United States mainly.
- Sculpture. The French Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875), as well as the Belgian Constantin Meunier (1831-1905) and the Italian Medardo Rosso (1858-1928).
- Literature. The French Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), Stendhal (1783-1842) and Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880); the Englishman Charles Dickens (1812-1870); the Spanish Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920) and the Russians Fiódor Dostoevski (1821-1881), founder of the psychological novel, and León Tolstoi (1828-1910).
Magical realism
Magical realism is a 20th century Hispanic American literary school, whose main exponent is the Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. This trend is committed to the realistic representation of strange and wonderful events, which nevertheless produce little or no surprise in the fictional universe of the work. In other words, it is about the daily and objective approach to fantastic events.
This aspect of realism also involves a political stance before the reality of the Latin American peoples, which was initially formulated by the Cuban Alejo Carpentier (who called it "marvelous real") and by the Venezuelan Arturo Úslar Pietri (already as "magical realism"), in that the Latin American continent plays the role of reservoir of magic and the exotic within a rationalist and scientistic western hemisphere.