What are Realistic Paintings

Realistic  art is is similar to realistic literature.; it is the rendering of the subject matter as it really is without being embellished or putting one’s personal influence on it. Realistic painting focuses on  portraying  the scene or the person as is in a no frills and unromantic fashion. It is  to relay exactly what the artist is seeing to the future viewer of the painting without adding to or taking away from the subject.

Many of the paintings done my realist painters tend to deal more with situations or subjects that are a little abnormal or even sordid. Realist photography is the same way, for example some of the photos from earthquakes portraying an actual destruction, while shocking, were also very real. The idea of realism is to say this is all I know, what I see with my own eyes, whereas idealism is more concerned with a philosophy just a reflection of something greater in our world.

Painters  are more likely to work in subject matter that is commonplace and everyday such as farming, fishing, and other normal everyday pastimes as well specializing in painting the elderly.

In the 1500’s mannerism was probably the most practiced from of art in Europe and depicted figures that were exaggerated and abnormal appearing in unrealistic positions. The work of Caravaggio changed all of this when his paintings of average everyday people involved in the doing normal activities became popular. All of his paintings were simply like photographs or snapshots of real events of everyday ordinary people.

 Today, realism is still a major force in art as well as all other forms of media. Some of the largest draws at museums are the realist photographers who are portraying subject matter from the Gulf War and other similar tragic landscapes in a way that tugs at the heart. Realism can make you feel like you are there and at the same time, glad you are not.