Show Summary Details

Page of

Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 15 February 2025

Visual Arts: Realism and Naturalismlocked

Visual Arts: Realism and Naturalismlocked

  • Linda StratfordLinda StratfordAsbury University
  • , and William DyrnessWilliam DyrnessFuller Theological Seminary

Summary

In the visual arts, realism and naturalism are modes of representation associated with faithfulness to physical fact. From the late medieval period forward, fine art in the West gave increasing primacy of place to realism and naturalism. Within the aesthetic category termed “realistic” or “naturalistic,” depiction is characteristically mimetic, distinguished by varying degrees of literalness. Whether based on clinically observed reality, or technique devoted to relaying impressions of clinically observed reality, artwork considered realistic or naturalistic brings to mind observable phenomena. Recognizably corporeal material such as the human figure, scenery, and objects of visible experience may be carried out as an instinctual, direct response to forms, or may be rendered in a nonidealized manner, thereby emphasizing fidelity to nature. In either case, fidelity to recognizable nature is the overriding concern. Nevertheless, while naturalism employs and asserts the facts of material life, it is not limited to facts of material life in its representations. Naturalism is a broad pictorial ideology, with divergent aims, including assigning symbolic meaning to familiar objects, underscoring the allegorical potential of common articles, and suggesting experience of the divine through encounters with nature.

Importantly, a distinction exists between the use of naturalistic effects, and practices associated with the art-historical movement known as Realism. The 19th-century movement Realism exists as a particular manifestation within the broader category of naturalism. Originating in France, Realism as a category is distinct in its use of realistic effects to capture conditions of contemporary life. In France, painters and sculptors (such as Courbet and Rodin) explored their modern subjects with a reforming zeal, giving representation to the poor most especially, and breaking with the gentility of subjects and treatments long associated with fine art. In the 19th and 20th centuries in France and beyond, artists continued to pursue the democratizing aims of Realism, by addressing public issues, fostering reforming religious piety, and encouraging social vision through the widened employment of pictorially recognizable facts of material life.

Subjects

  • Religion and Art

You do not currently have access to this article

Login

Please login to access the full content.

Subscribe

Access to the full content requires a subscription