followed by what is now generally termed Symbolism, it

was the dominant movement from about 1840 until

187080. Its aim was to give a truthful, objective and

AS10005

Perspectives on Realism

impartial representation of the real world, based on

1
meticulous observation of contemporary life
Nochlin, it should be said, treats impressionism as a sub-set
of realism. In the specification to which this text relates,
realism and impressionism are treated separately. From the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2001, article on the subject:

Study Notes in this series

AS10001
Major terms and concepts in
History of Art and Design
AS10002
On analysing works of art
and design
AS10003
The order within: an
approach to pictorial analysis
AS10004
Classicism, neoclassicism,
romanticism
AS10005
Perspectives on realism
AS10006
From realism to abstraction
AS10007
Architecture and technical
innovation in the machine
age
AS10008
William Morris and the Arts
and Crafts Movement
AS10009
Art Nouveau
AS10010
De Stijl
AS10011
Bauhaus
AS10012
Modernism and
postmodernism

In the text, a Z symbol refers

to these Study Notes

Fig. 1
Hellenistic sculpture, Old Market
Woman, copy; New York,
Metropolitan Museum. Reproduced
from John Boardman, editor, The
Oxford History of Classical Art, 1993,
p. 206.

Art is not a copy of the real world. One of the damn

things is enough.
Virginia Woolf
Realism is a widely used yet somewhat elusive term.
As with much in western culture, our notion of artistic
realism can be traced back to Ancient Greece. Surviving examples of their sculpture and what little is known
of their paintings testify to the Greeks innovative
powers in accurate observation and depiction. If we
define realism more narrowly, in terms of true to life
depictions of the contemporary and the mundane, then
the most direct antecedent here is a strand within Hellenistic art (ZAS10004). These artists rejected as
subjects the perfect physical specimens, in the prime of
life, chosen, or created, by their classical forefathers.
Instead, they depicted the conspicuously unidealised
and imperfect. This kind of realism has often appeared

In the arts, the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life. Realism rejects
imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation
of outward appearances. As such, realism in its broad

since, including in the art of Ancient Rome, but the term

is now most generally applied to the work of those
French mid-19th century painters centring on Gustave

sense has comprised many artistic currents in different

civilizations. In the visual arts, for example, realism can
be found in ancient Hellenistic Greek sculptures accur-

Courbet, Jean-Franois Millet and Honor Daumier. The

very significant figure of douard Manet is probably
best assigned to the middle ground between realism

ately portraying boxers and decrepit old women

and that looser, less detail-fixated, kind of realism we

know as impressionism. Since then, in France and
beyond, there have been several major realist
movements social realism, socialist realism, photorealism, among others. In this study note, however,
attention is not on individual practitioners, movements
or works but on realism in its broad sense. Here we
shall concern ourselves with general characteristics of
the broad realist approach, the approach that distinguishes western optical art from that of every other
developed culture. We thus begin with a discussion of
the science of appearances, the broad philosophical
and technical issues involved. It will be apparent from
this that the ideal of realism, to provide a copy of the
real world, is unachievable. Knowingly or not, the
artists personality intrudes upon and limits any such

Fig. 2 Honor Daumier Battle of the Schools, from Le Charivari,

1855, lithograph.

attempts. Identifying some of the more general kinds of

intrusions and limitations will form the second part of
our discussion the art of appearances.

Realism was not consciously adopted as an aesthetic

program until the mid-19th century in France, however.
Indeed, realism may be viewed as a major trend in
French novels and paintings between 1850 and 1880
The French proponents of realism were agreed in their

Realism: some definitions

rejection of the artificiality of both the Classicism and

Romanticism of the academies and on the necessity for
contemporaneity in an effective work of art. They attemp-

Linda Nochlin introduces the topic of realism as follows:

Realism, as an historical movement in the figurative arts
and in literature, attained its most coherent and
consistent formulation in France, with echoes, parallels
and variants elsewhere on the Continent, in England and
in the United States. Preceded by Romanticism and

ted to portray the lives, appearances, problems, customs, and mores of the middle and lower classes, of the
1

Linda Nochlin, Realism, 1971; Penguin Books, 1990, p. 13.

unexceptional, the ordinary, the humble, and the

unadorned. Indeed, they conscientiously set themselves
to reproducing all the hitherto-ignored aspects of

Reality and appearances

contemporary life and society its mental attitudes,

physical settings, and material conditions.

extremes: the metaphysical and religious, or the physical

and scientific. Within the history of western culture, the
former is predominantly associated with Plato and Christ:

And Harold Osborne defines realism that embraces late

20th century developments as:
the representation of things precisely as they are seen
to be without imagination, idealization or any kind of
interpretation. There is often implied an emphasis upon

We can hardly speak of realism without also speaking of

reality. Views of reality have tended towards one of two

the latter, with Aristotle. Raphael, in his Vatican fresco The

School of Athens, 151011, shows Plato and Aristotle sideby-side centre-stage, Plato symbolically pointing up and
Aristotle pointing down.

detail rather than general impression.

The terms Photographic Realism (or Photo-Realism),
Hyperrealism, Superrealism indicate extreme forms of
Realism in this sense, usually with exaggerated attention
2
to detail
A DIFFERENT KIND OF REALISM
In his capacity as editor of an earlier work, The Oxford
Companion to Art, 1970, Osborne also identifies a very
different kind of artistic realism, one that hinges on the
reality of the artwork itself (the paint, canvas, bronze)
rather than the reality of anyone or any thing represented by
it. Discussion of this will be left for later in this note series
(AS10006).

The science of appearances

Westerners, it has been said, draw what they see: others,
what they know. This is undoubtedly an oversimplification.
From what was said earlier, for instance, it should be apparent that seeing and knowing, or perceiving and conceiving, are seldom distinct and separate activities
(ZAS10001). Nevertheless, that the western concept of
painting is an optical one, based on the accurate reproduction of outward appearance, sets it apart from that of every
other developed culture. As for so much else, this notion of
painting as a view through a window can be traced back to
Ancient Greece. It was there that firm connections were
established between art, optics (the study of vision and the
behaviour of light), and geometry.
Whether seen at the time as a threat to established ways
of doing things, or as an opportunity to do things better,
various kinds of technical innovations have helped shape
the art of painting. (There is of course close correspondence between painting and the other visual arts but we will
focus here on painting alone.) We shall look at a few major
technical innovations and their impact. Some matters, such
as perspective and the use or influence of mirrors and
lenses, have already been touched on in this series. In a
few respects, for the sake of convenience and coherence,
there is some overlap with the earlier material.

Optics and geometry

By modern standards, the Ancients had a poor
understanding of optics. However, as light, for most
practical purposes, may be considered to travel in straight
lines, there is a clear affinity with geometry. One of the great
geometrician Euclids (active 300 BC) works is The Optics,
and Euclid is still the basis upon which geometry is taught.

Harold Osborne, editor, The Oxford Companion to Twentieth

Century Art, 1981, p. 456.

Fig. 3 Raphael School of Athens, 151011, fresco, Stanza della

Segnatura, Vatican Palace, Rome.

PLATO
Plato (c. 428347 BC) argued that, in trying to define the
nature of truth or reality, we should rely not on appearances
but ideas. (Or stated more formally: what stands in contrast
by a relation of illusion, falsity or opinion to reality is
appearance.) For Plato, the idea or concept of table was
more real than any actual table, which in turn was more
real than any image mental, drawn, painted of a table.
Geometrical forms, as pure expressions from the realm of
abstract Idea, were truthful and beautiful in themselves. Art,
however, dealing with mere appearances, sullied by the
imperfections of the material world, was at the greatest
remove from truth. Classical art compensates for this to an
extent by reflecting an idealised worldview in its perfect
body-types, shown in the prime of life.
ARISTOTLE
For Plato, appearances were a poor, distant and unreliable
reflection of ultimate truth or reality. For Aristotle (c. 384-22
BC), appearances observed, analysed and used as the
basis for deduction were the way to understanding and
truth. Leaving aside the religious, Aristotle is widely seen as
the greatest thinker who ever lived. He ranged across virtually all the major fields of human knowledge in his time, the
arts as well as the natural sciences, and established the
basic methodologies and content in most of them. His work
in logic and zoology, to name but two areas, has only been
superseded in relatively recent times.
It should also be noted that he allowed for a metaphysical dimension. His thought here is especially difficult to
grasp. He defined the soul, for instance, as the form of the
body, although also contending that form cannot exist apart
from matter except in the case of God, who is pure form,
pure intelligence.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY, AN OVERVIEW
The following extract from the Encyclopaedia Britannica

Philosophy among the Greeks slowly emerged out of

RENAISSANCE AND AFTER

With the Renaissance era (the re-birth of classical culture),

religious awe into wonder about the principles and

elements of the natural world. But as the Greek
populations more and more left the land to become

a generally scientific, Aristotelian outlook is reawakened

and artists interests turn increasingly towards the accurate
observation and depiction of the world around them. As we

concentrated in their cities, interest shifted from nature to

social living; questions of law and convention and civic
values became paramount. Cosmological speculation

shall see, though, a major philosophic challenge to the

Platonic world view did not come together until the latter half
of the 19th century (ZAS10006, AS10012).

partly gave way to moral and political theorizing, and the

preliminary and somewhat fragmentary questionings of
Socrates and the Sophists turned into the great positive

Art as illusion

helps make sense of some rather confusing developments:

constructions of Plato and Aristotle. With the political and

social fragmentation of the succeeding centuries,
however, philosophising once again shifted from the
norm of civic involvement to problems of salvation and
3
survival in a chaotic world.
CHRIST
Moving into the Christian era, the Platonic philosophical
hierarchy Idea at the top and Art at the bottom becomes, in a sense, married to the religious, with God taking
Fig. 4
Madonna Enthroned,
late 13th century
Byzantine panel
painting. Reproduced
from H. W. Janson
History of Art, 1962; 4th
edition, Thames and
Hudson, 1991, prepagination.

An Ancient Greek painter by the name of Zeuxis is reported

to have been so skilful that birds tried to eat grapes he
painted. Almost nothing of Greek painting on walls or panels
survives but there is little reason to doubt that this and
similar stories have basis in fact.
SOMETHING LIKE MADAME TUSSAUDS WAXWORKS
In sculpture, as in painting, the Greeks seem to have highly
valued the artists ability to create an illusion of life. Greek
sculptures and Roman copies of Greek originals have
survived in reasonable numbers and on them have been
found traces of colour. The now familiar marble, limestone,
and bronze surfaces, weathered over two thousand years,
are probably far removed from the original intention. Closer
to this may be something like Madame Tussauds waxworks, albeit with inspired senses of siting, proportion,
expression and execution.
LIFE-LIKE FUNERARY PAINTINGS
Fig. 5
Mummy portrait of a young girl;
Roman encaustic painting from
al-Fayyum, Egypt, 2nd century;
Louvre Museum, Paris
(Giraudon-Art Resources/EB Inc
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2001).

the place of Idea at the top. Appearances (of the natural

world) remain of lowly status and limited interest in comparison with problems of salvation and survival in a chaotic
world. For the believer, the ultimate reality lies not in the
world of nature and appearances but in a spiritual or supernatural one beyond, which can be but merely hinted at
through symbols.
ICONOCLASM
It should be noted in this context that image-making itself,
especially of holy figures, has been and, by some, still is
regarded as profane. In the Old Testament, part of the holy
teachings of both Judaism and Christianity, the second of
the Ten Commandments speaks against the making and
worship of graven images. Islam or Mohammedanism was
also influenced by the Old Testament and has a similar
injunction. Within the Byzantine Empire, the years 717-867
were known as the Age of Iconoclasm (Greek for imagebreaking), when this prohibition was orthodoxy. The
Reformation in 16th century western Europe brought a
further such image-destroying wave.

History of Philosophy: Shifts in the Focus and Concerns of

Philosophy, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2001.

There are quite numerous surviving examples of Roman

painting in which the artists intent to achieve an illusion of
life is clear. Many of these surviving examples are portraits,
lent added poignancy by the fact that they are funerary
works, the subjects themselves dead at the time of being
painted or sculpted.
TROMPE LOEIL
The extreme case of art-as-illusion is commonly referred to
as trompe loeil the French term to describe a painted
work intended primarily to deceive the eye. The trompe loeil
artist may occupy a lowly position in arts hierarchy, usually
showing little concern with aesthetic values or meaningful
content. Achieving a successful illusion is made easier if the
depicted scene is shallow in depth. It also helps if the viewing position is exactly that intended. In stately homes, for
instance, the thick walls sometimes necessitated double
connecting doors between rooms, and the back of one such

door was often used. The approach to the door was restricted, and the illusion was also aided by the fact that lighting,
in the short passageway between the doors, was generally

works in the medium of oil paint. In comparison with the

poor.

Perspective
A lengthy account of perspective, from Osbornes The
Oxford Companion to Art, begins as follows:
In the context of pictorial and scenic art the term
perspective may refer to any graphic method,
geometrical or otherwise, that is concerned with
conveying an impression of spatial extension into depth,
whether on a flat surface or with form shallower than that
represented (as in relief sculpture and theatre scenery).
Perspective representation or composition results when
the artist adopts a visual approach to drawing and
consequently portrays perspective phenomena such as
the diminution in size of objects at a distance and the
convergence of parallel lines in recession from the eye.
Perspective is by no means common to the art of all
epochs and all peoples. For example, the pictorial art of
the ancient Egyptians, although a richly developed
tradition, did not take account of the optical effects of
recession. And the drawing of primitive peoples and of
young children tends to ignore perspective
phenomena
Western painting started to develop along optical
lines first in Greece and received a geometrical bias from

Fig. 6 Jan van Eyck Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami (The
Arnolfini Wedding), 1434; oil on oak panel, 81.8 x 59.7 cm/ 32.25 x
34.8 in; National Gallery, London.

its early association with the optics of classical antiquity,

The illusion of the dimension of depth has been its
distinguishing characteristic and to this end geometrical

tempera, fresco and other painting mediums used hitherto,

perspective one of its principal aids. The idea of the

single static focus of Renaissance perspective and the
characteristic system of central convergence owed
much to the recurrence of themes demanding the
representation of interiors. The only other highly
developed pictorial tradition in which spatial values are
paramount, i.e. the Chinese, evolved on the other hand
principally from landscape and took for granted a
travelling eye. Hence Chinese artists with rare
exceptions adopted the convention of parallelism
when they represented buildings, a system which,
although denying the optical principle of the convergence
of receding parallels, yet had the virtue of allowing the
eye glide easily from scene to scene.

oil paint allowed unprecedented range, control and flexibility

of effect. All of these are superbly demonstrated in this
work.

Mirrors, lenses and Hockney

Prominent in the background of the Van Eyck is a convex
mirror. Evidence has been gathering for some time as to the
role of mirrors, lenses, and devices such as the camera
obscura and camera lucida in the development of western
painting. However, as noted earlier, it had to await the artist
David Hockneys book, Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering
the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters (Thames and
Hudson, 2001), for a fully developed and broadly based
thesis on the matter (ZAS10003).

The principles of vanishing point perspective seem to have

Perhaps the single most compelling piece of evidence

Hockney presents is the distorted human skull, centre-

been known to Greek and Roman painters but their rediscovery had to await the Florentine architect Filippo
Brunelleschi (13771446), probably sometime between

foreground of Holbeins The Ambassadors, 1533 a work

discussed earlier, from another interpretative viewpoint
(AS10003). Painting this distorted skull so accurately would

1410 and 1415. Brunelleschi left it to his friend, and fellow

Renaissance man, Leon Battista Alberti (140472) to
codify and publish these principles (Della Pittura, 1436; On

seem almost impossible without optical aids. On the other

hand, it is demonstrably achievable using a mirror or lens
and tilting the painting surface at the appropriate angle to

Painting). Before this, though, as noted earlier, he seems to

have introduced them to at least one painter, Masaccio
(ZAS10003).

the image, in the way Hockney describes.

In some respects, these are early days in this line of

Introduction of oil paint

research and critical opinion is still to form. A question to be

asked, for instance, is: if optical equipment was so extensively used by painters, should we not expect more substant-

Jan Van Eycks Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami

(The Arnolfini Wedding), 1434, is one of the earliest major

ial eye-witness recorded comment on its use, from portrait

subjects or models who posed for those painters?

Glass

Harold Osborne, editor, The Oxford Companion to Art, 1970, p.

840.

While on the subject of mirrors and lenses, and new

assessments as to their use and significance, another

recent study deserves mention. This is The Glass
Bathyscaphe (Profile Books, 2002; ISBN 1 86197 400 0) by
the Cambridge anthropologist Alan Macfarlane and the
glass specialist Gerry Martin. Covering a broad range of
topics (among them, window-glass technology, scientific
instrumentation, and perspective), the authors present a
strong case for glass as one of the principal factors in the
development of western civilization. As an example, glass
helps account for significant differences in development
between west and east (particularly China and Japan).
Westerners tend to be long-sighted: easterners,
shortsighted. Prior to effective reading glasses being
available, western scholars or fine craftsmen had a
relatively short useful life. Chinese and Japanese, on the
other hand, were usually able to be productive into their
later years, simply by working closer to the work. This to
some extent accounts for the relatively unimportant part
glass plays in eastern civilisations and, along with that, the
relatively slow development in the sciences since about the
14th century.

Photography
The camera obscura phenomenon was observed by
Aristotle in the fourth century BC, but it was not until 1839
that a practical system was invented for automatically
preserving, or fixing, a projected image by the Frenchman Louis Daguerre. Early equipment was large and
cumbersome, chemical fixing processes complex and
unpredictable, exposure times were measured in minutes
rather than fractions of a second, and colour was not
available until 1907 (the Autochrome process was invented
in France by Auguste and Louis Lumire). However, by
1977, writer and critic Susan Sontag was able to write:
the images that have virtually unlimited authority in a
modern society are mainly photographic images; and the
scope of that authority stems from the properties peculiar
to images taken by cameras.
Such images are indeed able to usurp reality because
first of all a photograph is not only an image (as a
painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is
also a trace, something directly stencilled off the real,
5
like a footprint or a death mask
In modern society now, where imagery of all kinds, including
the photographic, is routinely subjected to digital manipulation, Sontags argument would clearly have to be modified
or qualified but her basic point about the photographs
authority or truthfulness undoubtedly remains valid.

PHOTOGRAPHY, AN AID AND A THREAT

From the 19th century realist painters viewpoint, photography was both an aid and a threat. It was immediately
recognised as a major resource of imagery, a means for
obtaining easily and quickly sketches, representations, of
unprecedented exactness. Only, for instance, when photographed by Eadweard Muybridge about 1878 was it realised
how exactly a horse or a dog runs. Even as brilliant an
observer of animals as the romantic painter Thodore
Gricault (17911824) got it wrong. On the other hand, a
means that allowed the unskilled person to produce their
own such representations threatened the very livelihood of
those painters content merely to record appearances of the
physical world. Photographs were perceived as another
kind of threat in that various academicians voiced concern
at a deterioration in drawing and painting skills following
photographys introduction. Ingres was one of these academicians. Ironically, it was the traced quality of certain
portrait drawings by Ingres that initially prompted Hockney
to investigate painters use of optical aids.
THE PAINTERS OPTIONS
Faced with photographys threat, several short-term options
were available to painters, based on a number of things
very early photography could not do. It could not record
colour. It could not satisfactorily record movement, particularly under poor lighting conditions. It could not record what
was not there physically (perhaps, say, a battle scene) in a
way available to a competent painter. These and other
deficiencies, while they remained, were exploited by
painters. In the main, however, the engagement with
photography led painters into altogether more radical and
long-term self-appraisals. Where those reappraisals led is
largely for later discussion

Improvements in paint technology

About 1841 the collapsible lead paint tube was introduced.
Prior to this, painters had to carry pigments and mixing
media separately pig bladders were favoured containers.
Also about this time, the range of colours available to
artists was greatly expanded due to the introduction of new
artificial dyes. Hitherto, for instance, blues tended to be so
rare and expensive particularly those derived from the
lapis lazuli semi-precious stone that a sunny
impressionist seascape painting would have been almost
unthinkable.
These two developments made the whole practice of
painting more convenient, less studio-bound, and, insofar

PHOTOGRAPHY AND PAINTING

In the context of a discussion of realism, it is worth noting

as a greatly expanded range of affordable pre-mixed

colours was easily to hand, greatly encouraged experimentation. Painters felt freer to work directly on the canvas,

that photographys invention almost exactly coincides with

the beginnings of French realist painting. From its earliest
days, photography exerted a major influence on painting.

omitting preliminary drawings and sketches; apply paint

more thickly than hitherto, producing rich alla prima,
impasto effects; and experiment with the newly available

Figure studies by artists as early and as various as

Delacroix, Corot, Courbet, Manet, Degas, and Lautrec have
been traced to actual photographs. Degas off-centre compositions owe much to the unposed quality of photographs,

colours.

as they do also to Japanese prints.

As just discussed, worldview, materials, equipment and

Susan Sontag, The Image World, 1977, in A Susan Sontag

Reader, Penguin, 1983, pp. 349-350.

The art of appearances

technical knowledge will all influence what and how an artist
depicts. In addition to these factors, however, the subjective
element at the core of art will usually ensure that, in front of

the finished artwork, the viewer also has the sense of a

portion of the world seen through a personality. Like the
science of appearances, the art of appearances has to be
considered. Insofar as a general term like realism can be
characterised, we shall attempt to do so here mainly by
identifying its principal alternatives.

comparing and contrasting the work with an imaginary

colour photograph of the subject. Pondering any departures
from that imagined photograph, it was said, will often tell us
something of the artists intent. Here, in a similar way, we

Realism: core characteristics

focus on the alternatives to the realist approach. Six such

are identified drawn again from Osborne (The Oxford
Companion to Art, 1970, pp. 95455) representing the

The realist approach is characterised by a focus on the

contemporary and true to life. Realist subject matter, it

principal ways artists deploy imagination, idealization and

interpretation within their work.

follows, is usually mundane. But it need not necessarily be

so. A realist artist may, for instance, as the Chinese curse
has it, live during interesting times. Goyas The Disasters of
War print series, 181014, is horrific in its content but it is
6
also realist. A realist approach also usually indicates a
materialist world view. Again, though, this need not necessarily be the case. The French realist painter Jean-Franois

BEAUTY
One kind of realist work may be referred to as such
because it is concerned with subject matter that is not

Millet (181475), for instance, was much concerned with

recording the material reality of countryside labourers. He
did so with accuracy and compassion but also with clear
implications of a spiritual dimension beyond the materialist
one.

Other cultures and other realities

In the passage on perspective quoted earlier, Osborne
notes that the western perspective or optical approach to
artistic representation is unique among developed cultures.
Other kinds of artistic representation he cites as examples
those of Ancient Egypt, primitives and young children take
very different approaches. Only Chinese painting comes
close, and that is distinguished by a convention of spatial
parallelism rather than convergence. It is beyond the scope
of the present text to pursue this point further but its
7
significance should not be underestimated.

Realism and its major alternatives

In previous notes in this series, faced with the task of analysing a representational painting, we have recommended
Fig. 7
Jean Lon Grme
Pygmalion, date
and other details
unknown.

Fig. 8 Honor Daumier Pygmalion, 1842; from the series Histoire

Ancienne, lithograph, 22.9 x 19.0 cm/ 9 x 7.5 in; collection Carl
Zigrosser, Philadelphia, USA (reproduced from John Canaday,
Mainstreams of Modern Art, 1959).

conventionally beautiful. Honor Daumiers very homely

Pygmalion and ivory-statue-made-flesh Venus or Galatea
make the point, especially in comparison with an academic
work on the same theme, such as that by Grme here
illustrated.
ABSTRACTION

Taking his work as a whole, Goya is generally classed as romantic

rather than realist.
7

Those wishing to study this further could begin with the full account

of perspective in The Oxford Companion to Art, 1970, pp. 840861.

A fuller treatment again may be obtained from Margaret Hagens
Varieties of Realism: Geometries of Representational Art (Cambridge University Press, 1986, ISBN 0521253136.

Fig. 9 Piet Mondrian Trees in Bloom, 1912; oil on canvas, 60 x 85.1

cm/ 23.6 x 33.5 in; private collection, New York.

Piet Mondrians Trees in Bloom, 1912, as a representation

of a tree is unrealistic because of the degree of abstract-

study would not be considered realistic because of its

stylisation: the artists characterisation is imposed upon that
of his subjects.

ion.
DISTORTION

CARICATURE

Fig. 12 Honor Daumier Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, date

unknown, 56.5 x 84.5 cm/ 22.25 x 33.25 in; collection Mr and Mrs
Charles S. Payson, New York.

One may refer to a work as realistic to distinguish it from

one which is caricatured, as in many of the works of
Daumier.
GENERALISATION
Fig. 10 Paul Czanne Boy With a Red Waistcoat, 1890; oil on
canvas, 79.5 x 64 cm/ 31.3 x 25.2 in; Bhrle Collection, Zurich.

When someone remarked to the German painter Max

Liebermann that the arm in Paul Czannes Boy With a Red
Waistcoat, 1890, was too long, he is said to have replied:
an arm so marvellously painted can never be long
8
enough. Similarly, the elements within a painting by a
surrealist like Dali may be realistic in themselves but the
overall context in which they appear will probably be
abnormal or distorted in some way. Surreal distortions and
those of the Czanne kind may no longer be thought of
automatically as faults but the works, thus distorted, are in
at least one sense not realistic.
STYLIZATION
Fig. 11
Amadeo
Modigliani Lunia
Czechowska,
1919; oil on
canvas 47.0 x
33.0 cm/ 18.5 x
13.0 in; collection
Carlo Frua de
Angeli, Milan,
Italy.

A typical Amadeo Modigliani (18841920) portrait or figure

Osborne, 1970, p. 318.

Fig. 13 Constantin Brancusi Sleeping Muse, c. 1908; bronze.

Finally, one may refer to a work as realistic to distinguish it

from one which is generalized, as in Brancusis Sleeping
Muse, c.1908.