Realism (arts)
Illusionism

The development of increasingly accurate representations of the visual appearances of things has a long history in art. It includes elements such as the accurate depiction of the anatomy of humans and animals, the perspective and effects of distance, and the detailed effects of light and color. The art of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe achieved remarkably lifelike depictions of animals. Ancient Egyptian art developed conventions involving both stylization and idealization. Ancient Greek art is commonly recognized as having made great progress in the representation of anatomy. No original works on panels or walls by the great Greek painters survive, but from literary accounts and the surviving corpus of derivative works (mostly Graeco-Roman works in mosaic), illusionism seems to be highly valued in painting. Pliny the Elder 's famous story of birds pecking at grapes painted by Zeuxis in the 5th century BC may well be a legend.

As well as accuracy in shape, light, and color, Roman paintings show an unscientific but effective knowledge of representing distant objects smaller than closer ones and representing regular geometric forms such as the roof and walls of a room with perspective. This progress in illusionistic effects in no way meant a rejection of idealism; statues of Greek gods and heroes attempt to represent with accuracy idealized and beautiful forms, though other works, such as heads of the famously ugly Socrates, were allowed to fall below these ideal standards of beauty. Roman portraiture, when not under too much Greek influence, shows a greater commitment to a truthful depiction of its subjects, called verism.

The art of Late Antiquity famously rejected illusionism for expressive force, a change already well underway by the time Christianity began to affect the art of the elite. In the West, classical standards of illusionism did not begin to be reached again until the Late medieval and Early Renaissance periods and were helped first in the Netherlands in the early 15th century, and around the 1470s in Italy by the development of new techniques of oil painting which allowed very subtle and precise effects of light to be painted using several layers of paint and glaze. Scientific methods of representing perspective were developed in Italy in the early 15th century and gradually spread across Europe, with accuracy in anatomy rediscovered under the influence of classical art. As in classical times, idealism remained the norm.

The accurate depiction of landscape in painting had also been developing in Early Netherlandish/Early Northern Renaissance and Italian Renaissance painting and was then brought to a very high level in 17th-century Dutch Golden Age painting, with very subtle techniques for depicting a range of weather conditions and degrees of natural light. After being another development of Early Netherlandish painting, 1600 European portraiture subjects were often idealized by smoothing features or giving them an artificial pose. Still life paintings and still life elements in other works played a considerable role in developing illusionistic painting, though in the Netherlandish tradition of flower painting they long lacked "realism", in that flowers from all seasons were typically used, either from the habit of assembling compositions from individual drawings or as a deliberate convention; the large displays of bouquets in vases were atypical of 17th-century habits; the flowers were displayed one at a time.
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