In this life, there are many forms of art or art “movements” to speak of. How we interpret art is a very subjective thing. What a person sees and feels when looking at art greatly depends on their upbringing, their values, and even their mood at the time of viewing. Could something dark and lacking color be art? What about a comic strip in the newspaper or the billboard down the street? Again, interpretation and taste in art is individual. I elected to explore into the two art movements I like the least to potentially better understand them, and to potentially link them together.
Realism was painted to depict real life situations. It was developed by artists to create an illustration of common people and un-extraordinary circumstance. According to the facts in Wikipedia in regards to Realism, it was an attempt to be as photographic as possible without a camera. Realism was a revolt to the more emotionally driven Romanticism art where fantasy escaped onto canvas via the paintbrush. Realism is truthful, without fancy and ornamentation.
Realism first became known in 18th century France after the Revolution, denying the romantic predecessors and focusing more on direct observation of everyday life. Realisms use of ordinary people and places, making things fine art that ought to not be seen and inadvertently coinciding with socialist agendas and working-class uprising made it a quick target of adverse reactions (Finocchio, 2000).
While Realism ranges were expansive, from Millets portrayal of rural life and the poor such as Woman with a Rake, to Daumier’s more urban examples such as The Third-Class Carriage, one thing stood true of this art movement: “Realism is an approach to art in which subjects are depicted in as straightforward a manner as possible, without idealizing them and without following rules of formal artistic theory” (artcyclopedia.com).
Realism is a very deep art form that makes a person think about what was happening at