Realist concepts and approaches
Realism began in France around 1840 to 1850. Before it, official art schools asked painters to choose grand subjects: gods, heroes, kings, and to make bodies and faces beautiful. Realist painters said: paint what you can actually see, in your own time.
Main ideas of realism:
- Ordinary subjects. Farmers, stone breakers, washerwomen, train passengers.
- Honest looking. No flattering. Tired hands, plain clothes, worn tools are kept.
- Contemporary life. Scenes of the artist's own day, not old myths.
- Large size for common people. Gustave Courbet painted workers on a big canvas, a size once kept for heroes.
Key names: Gustave Courbet (The Stone Breakers, 1849), Jean-François Millet (The Gleaners, 1857), Honoré Daumier (city life and the poor). When the 1855 Paris exhibition rejected some of his big works, Courbet opened his own show near it, calling it the Pavilion of Realism.
Realism spread: in Russia the Itinerants painted village and river life; in India, artists such as Raja Ravi Varma mixed European realistic skill with Indian stories; in Spain, painters like Antonio López García have kept a calm, observed realism into modern times.
How realist artists work
A realist looks hard at the subject: shape, light, shadow, colour, texture. They draw from life or from careful sketches. Brushwork is usually calm and the colours stay close to what the eye sees. The message is often social: hard work, poverty, dignity.
Realism is not the same as a photograph. The artist still chooses what to show, how to place it and how to light it. It is a way of looking honestly, not only of copying.
Hyperrealism
Hyperrealism (also called Photorealism in painting) started in the late 1960s, mostly in the United States, and soon spread to Europe. These artists copy photographs with huge care, so the picture can look even sharper than real life.
- Tools: photographs, slide projectors, the grid method, airbrush, very fine brushes.
- Look: every reflection, pore, hair and drop of water. Often cool, neutral, no obvious emotion.
- Painters: Chuck Close (giant face portraits), Richard Estes (shiny city windows and streets), Audrey Flack (still lifes).
- Sculpture: Duane Hanson made life-size figures of ordinary people from body casts, with real clothes. Ron Mueck makes super-real figures but changes their size on purpose, much bigger or smaller than life.
Where realism studies life, hyperrealism often studies how a camera sees life. It can also make us look again at things we usually ignore.
Realism vs hyperrealism: how to tell them apart
| Realism | Hyperrealism | |
|---|---|---|
| Time | Mid-1800s | Late 1960s onwards |
| Source | Life, sketches | Photographs |
| Brushwork | Visible, calm | Hidden, smooth |
| Detail | What matters to the story | Everything, even tiny marks |
| Message | Often social and moral | Often about seeing, images and the camera |
Try it: see the difference yourself
In the 3D, use the last step. Slide to 0: the apple is perfect. Slide to 1: you now see a dent and a bruise. Slide to 2: tiny marks and a shine appear. Say aloud which one is realism and which is hyperrealism.
At home: take a photo of a leaf. Draw a 4 by 4 grid on a printout and the same grid very lightly on paper. Draw only what is in one square at a time. You have just used the hyperrealist grid method.
Key formulas and definitions
- Key terms: realism = honest look at ordinary life (c. 1840s–1870s)
- Hyperrealism / photorealism = painting or sculpture that looks sharper than a photo (from late 1960s)
- Grid method = copy a photo square by square
- Realism studies life; hyperrealism often studies the photograph of life
- Main realists: Courbet, Millet, Daumier. Main hyperrealists: Close, Estes, Hanson, Mueck
Worked examples
1. A painting shows two tired workers breaking stones by the road, in plain clothes, on a large canvas. Which style is this and why?
Realism. The subject is ordinary labour, shown honestly (tired, plain), in a large size once kept for heroes. This is like Courbet's The Stone Breakers.
2. A huge face portrait shows every pore and hair. The brushwork cannot be seen. How was it probably made and what style is it?
It is hyperrealism (photorealism). The artist probably copied a photograph using a grid or projector and smooth, hidden brushwork, as Chuck Close did with his giant portraits.
3. Give two differences between a realist painting and a hyperrealist one.
Realism uses life and sketches, visible brushwork and picks the details that matter to the story. Hyperrealism copies photographs, hides brushwork and shows every detail. Realism is from the 1800s, hyperrealism from the late 1960s.
4. Duane Hanson makes a life-size figure of a tired shopper from a body cast and dresses it in real clothes. Is this realism or hyperrealism? Explain.
It is hyperrealist sculpture. It is extremely lifelike (cast, real clothes), but it also has the realist interest in ordinary people, so it connects the two ideas.
Common mistakes
- Thinking realism means a perfect copy. Realist artists still choose, arrange and light their subject.
- Mixing up “realism” the art movement (1800s) with “realistic” meaning any lifelike picture. Realistic pictures exist in every century.
- Saying hyperrealism is just a photograph. It is a hand-made picture or sculpture, usually after weeks of work, and often shows things a photo does not.
- Calling every smooth, perfect picture realism. Idealised art is the opposite: it improves what it shows.