THESES ON REALISM IN ART [1994]

JOHN A. WALKER (Copyright, 2009)

I have taught a module entitled 'Realisms' for a number of years, as part of the Art

and Design History set offered by the School of History and Theory of Visual

Culture [at Middlesex University]. The title of the module is in the plural because

the history of art reveals that there have been many individual artists and groups of

artists, working in different countries and periods, who have called themselves

realists, even though their works of art have been very different in character -

ranging from the figurative to the abstract. A recurrent problem, therefore, is to

account for the variety of art movements employing the label 'Realist'.

A second problem concerns the relationship between pictorial representations

and reality, signs and referents: how does one judge the accuracy or truthfulness of

realistic images? The following theses are my personal conclusions reached after

many years of reflection. (Students were the readers I had in mind; hence the

attempt to make the language used as straightforward and non-technical as

possible. The theses are intended as a basis for further argument and discussion.)

Clearly, the two problems raise fundamental theoretical issues which are

normally the province of the discipline of philosophy. I was trained as a fine artist in

the 1950s and in recent decades have worked as an art critic and art historian; I am

not a professional philosopher. However, if it is legitimate for philosophers such as

Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre to write about art, then surely it is
legitimate for art historians to comment on philosophical questions.

1. There is only one reality. It can be defined as everything that presently exists, has

existed in the past and will exist in the future. Logical deduction tells us that past

reality pre-existed the emergence of the human species. Present reality includes

human beings and their thoughts. The universe in which we find ourselves existed

before we were born and will continue to exist after we die; consequently, it exists

independently of our consciousnesses. In other words, reality is not simply images in

the minds of human beings (as the pure idealist would have us believe).

2. Works of art do not exist outside reality. They exist within reality, indeed they are

part of it. In the case of paintings and sculptures, they are made from real materials

that have been worked upon and organized for the purpose of depicting or

commenting upon reality. (To use the reflection metaphor - 'art reflects reality' - is

inadequate because artists often reflect upon reality: they comment on it as well as

describing it.) The relationship between art and reality, therefore, is a part/whole

relationship, or a part-to-part relationship (most works of art describe aspects of

reality rather than the totality).

3. Every new work of art (whether realist or not) is an addition to present reality,

therefore the production of art changes and extends present reality. Art is also a

cultural force capable of influencing human behaviour and therefore future reality.

4. Present reality is incomplete; at the point of 'the arrow of time' it is open-ended

(there is a future); therefore, any realist depiction is likely to be true only in relation

to the time it was made (place or vantage point - both in the sense of physical
location and the sense of political/ideological position - is also crucial); therefore,

every statement about reality needs a time and place qualification. Contrary to

received wisdom, art is never timeless. Works of art are always marked by their

historical moment of production but some seem timeless because (a) they survive

long after their makers have died; (b) they are appreciated aesthetically by later

generations; and (c), their truth content may remain valid for a lengthy period

(John Heartfield's anti-Nazi photomontages of the 1930s are still relevant to us

because fascism and racism have not been completely eliminated).

5. What separates a work of art from the encompassing reality is (a) the concept art

and the social institution of art (that which enables us to distinguish art from non-

art); and (b), a frame or border or time-span of some kind. Also, the work is

generally made of different materials from that which it depicts. (A painting of

apples is made from canvas and pigment, not apples. Exceptionally, some

assemblages and installations are constructed from actual, everyday objects - one

could call them presentations rather than representations.) [Tracey Emin’s famous

bed is an example.]

6. There is only one reality but there are many different ways of representing it and

many media with which to represent it: a drawing of a scene differs from a

photograph or a verbal description of the same scene. Drawings done by different

artists of the same scene will also vary in terms of style. However, we should not

conclude from this that there are as many realities as there are individual artists.

7. Every representation of reality involves, therefore, a particular medium of

representation whose characteristics necessarily condition the end result. This

means there is generally a non-identity between a work of art and what it

represents. Theodor Adorno once remarked: 'language becomes a measure of truth

only when we are conscious of the non-identity of an expression with what we

mean'.

8. Nevertheless, it seems logical that any truthful work of art must correspond to

the reality it depicts in some, if not in all, respects. Otherwise we would not be able

to pick out a person we had not met before from a portrait of that person. (Often

there is an isomorphic relation between pictorial signs and their referents; for

example, the London Underground system and the London Underground diagram

are both networks of lines.) However, as already indicated, the material character of

the work of art normally differs from what it represents: the word 'sugar' is not a

white or brown substance, nor is it sweet; the 'pipe' in a René Magritte painting

may look like a pipe seen from one viewpoint but it cannot be picked up and

smoked. Hence, representations of reality tend to be reductive in the sense that they

depict only a limited number of the object's characteristics.

9. A realist work of art may be usefully compared to a map, model or plan: it is

accurate, truthful in certain respects, but not in all respects. (A street map is

truthful if strangers to a city can use it to find their way about; the map is a

simplified, schematic representation of the urban terrain but it does not attempt to

depict everything found at street level.)

10. Besides being a truthful depiction of reality the realist work of art is a real

artefact; consequently, the honest work of art acknowledges rather than disguises
the reality of the materials from which it is made and the processes of labour

involved in its fabrication.

11. The truthful depiction of reality does not depend upon resemblance, though in

some cases it may. (The word 'cat' does not resemble a cat, but a photograph of a

particular cat may.) Many visual representations consist of several different kinds

of sign, only some of which are iconic.

12. There are paintings with real referents: for example, a Paul Cézanne landscape

of the mountain Saint Victoire in Provence, but there are also paintings whose

referents only exist in the imaginations of artists or the

collective mythology of society: for example, non-existent entities such as angels,

fairies, unicorns and Donald Duck. Such invented creatures are pictorial lies,

fictions or fantasies. Even so, they are generally created by combining elements

derived from different aspects of reality.

13. To describe and depict reality writers and artists employ verbal and pictorial

languages that have evolved over many centuries. The relative autonomy of these

languages means that they can be manipulated to tell lies, to construct fictional or

virtual universes, or to generate nonsense. However, the scepticism that results from

knowing how easy it is to tell lies should not lead us to conclude that language can

no longer be used to tell the truth.

14. Lies and fictions are not identical; they have different social functions; but in a

literal sense they are both untruths. The lying and fictional capacity of language has

a positive dimension, a utopian potential: it enables artists, visionaries and

politicians to imagine future alternatives to present reality. Hence the Christian

artist can depict visions of Heaven, while the socialist artist can depict a

harmonious and just society. Such images may not be true now but they could turn

out to be true. (At the time it is drawn, an architect's drawing/plan for a new

hospital is, literally speaking, a lie or fantasy - it depicts a building that does not

exist - but if the building is erected according to the plan, then the drawing gains a

referent and becomes true.)

15. Direct perceptual observation of external reality or nature is one common

method of achieving realism in art and this may involve attempts by artists to

suppress knowledge or memories of the stockpile of images provided by the history

of art. Artists often use procedures designed to achieve an 'innocent eye' in order to

see reality afresh. However, it is difficult for artists to deny their cultural knowledge

and the heritage of previous art is often as much a source of realist compositions as

perceived reality. For example, the composition of the figures in Edouard Manet's

painting 'Execution of Maximilian' (1867-68) - a canvas itself based on photos and

news reports rather than direct observation - echoes that of Francisco Goya's

'Shootings of the Third of May 1808' (1814).

16. E. H. Gombrich has argued that when landscape painters copy nature, making

marks on canvas always precedes the matching process. We can say that a realist

landscape is the result of a struggle to realize the painter's visual sensations in front

of nature using particular materials and tools - a determinate medium of

representation. It involves a making/matching process that is inflected also by the

'language' or conventions of the oil painting tradition, and by the knowledge the
artist has of earlier landscape paintings.

17. The development of representational systems (such as perspective) and

recording technologies (such as photography) over the centuries has been driven by

a desire for greater and greater illusionism. Illusionism in visual art is often equated

with realism but a highly illusionistic image is not necessarily the most truthful kind

of image. Illusionism seeks to imitate the surface detail, to record the external

appearance of reality as accurately as possible. But one can see something without

necessarily understanding it. There is often a conflict between how a thing looks and

how it is: a man walking into the distance appears to become smaller but he does

not actually become a midget. Seeing and knowing, therefore, are not identical. (The

commonplace remark 'seeing is believing' is contradicted by another: 'appearances

are deceptive'.)

18. Computer graphics specialists and designers of Virtual Reality systems seek to

duplicate the look and feel of reality but an exact duplication of part of reality as a

goal for art is contradictory and pointless. (As Virginia Woolf is said to have

remarked, 'one reality is bad enough'.) An exact duplicate or clone would be

indistinguishable from its source, and therefore would not be recognized as a work

of art at all! This is why the goal of absolute illusionism in art is absurd. However,

illusionistic systems of representation - such as cinematography - may be one of the

means from which art can be made.

19. By definition, the visual artist is dependent upon visual appearances, and

appearances can deceive. Even so, invisible, hidden relations (such as economic or
power relationships) can be communicated to viewers through devices such as

montage, metaphor, allegory and symbolism. Artists who wish to depict reality will

need, therefore, a political understanding of the society in which they live and this

will depend upon critical analysis and theory as well as empirical knowledge

derived from observation and information gathering.

20. Bertolt Brecht once cited the inadequacy of records of surface appearances by

arguing that a photograph of a factory told us very little about that factory - what it

made, who owned it, what the workers were paid, etc. This is simply a consequence

of the limited information a single

photograph provides. (The specifically visual information provided by a single

photograph could well be useful for certain purposes - if you wanted to bomb the

factory, an aerial photograph would help.) A series of photographs with captions

could tell us more; a film or TV documentary with verbal commentary made by

someone with an understanding of the political economy of capitalism could tell us

even more.

21. A realist image is one that says something truthful about reality; but there are

limits to the amount of information anyone image, book, TV documentary, etc., can

convey. The limited, partial nature of the information conveyed inevitably produces

distortions and gaps even when the communicator is striving to be truthful. The

impossibility of saying everything about a society forced artists to search for the

typical or the representative: for example, using types to represent different social

classes or professions. The type, however, can easily degenerate into the stereotype.

Also, types do not do justice to the complexity of real individuals.

22. There are also degrees of precision in describing or reporting reality; for

example, estimates of crowd sizes often vary from newspaper to newspaper. This

does not mean they are all equally valid; on the contrary, one estimate will be more

accurate than the others. The degree of precision required varies according to the

social situation or purpose for which the information is needed - for many

purposes rough estimates are perfectly adequate. It is clear, however, that

judgements as to the accuracy or truthfulness of a report or a photograph are

dependent upon the viewer's ability to verify the information it contains against

the reality it depicts and other evidence produced independently - a

correspondence theory of truth is thus inescapable.

23. Ensuring our conceptions and models of reality are true is a constant struggle,

not only because of the deliberate misinformation some humans generate and the

intrinsic complexities of nature, but also because of changes in reality over time.

Our very survival as a species depends upon our ability to comprehend the 'laws'

of nature and the changing environment. Although human societies can survive for

some timecenturies even - while holding mistaken ideas and beliefs, sooner or later

reality will assert itself; those who cling to false beliefs will face extinction by the

process of natural selection.

24. Judging the truthfulness of news reports is often problematic because they

frequently contain a mixture of fact and fiction. A realist painting, therefore, may

also contain a mix of truth and errors. We may need, therefore, to express the

truthfulness of an image in percentage terms. We already speak of 'half-truths'.

25. Realism, in the terminology of the visual arts, most frequently refers to a

nineteenth-century movement associated with painters like Gustave Courbet, J-F.

Millet, Edouard Manet and Ford Madox Brown. This movement was distinguished

not only because of its truth-to-contemporary-reality programme, but also because

of its assertion of difference from other art styles such as classicism and

romanticism.

26. Today, 'realisms' has to be used in the plural because there have been so many

art movements since the nineteenth century that have employed the term: critical

realism, socialist realism, surrealism, magic realism, Nouveau Realisme, and photo-

realism.

27. In the twentieth century, realist tendencies in visual art have generally been

figurative in character and they have opposed themselves to abstraction - but,

paradoxically, some abstract artists (Naum Gabo for example) have published

realist manifestos. The realist claim of abstract artists is generally based on the

arguments that their art is made from real materials, that it imitates the creative

processes of nature in its modes of construction, and that the finished work is a new

addition to reality.

28. Realist artists presumably believe that realism should be the goal of all art, but

so far realism is only one of the varieties of art that exist. As the word 'surrealism'

indicates, some artists have sought to transcend realism. Many surrealists wanted to

achieve a synthesis of internal and external realities (the subjective and the

objective), and to subvert existing conceptions of reality in order to stimulate left-

wing revolutionary change.

29. Contemporary reality is often vile. Viewers watching TV news or documentaries

about earthquakes, famine, war, rape, torture, murder, etc., may well find their

realism unbearable (even though the reports are generally sanitized in advance by

the media gatekeepers). Some viewers will look away or switch off their sets. News

and documentaries, though realist in intention, do not normally aspire to the

condition of art. A successful work of art is an artefact that provides aesthetic

pleasure no matter bow disturbing its subject matter. Since realist art places

particular emphasis on the content or referent of the image, it may direct the

viewer's attention away from the reality of the artefact itself and the aesthetic

pleasure associated with it. Alternatively, if the subject matter is horrific, the viewer

may well be disturbed or embarrassed by the fact that aesthetic pleasure can be

derived from images of violence and suffering.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article was first published in the Middlesex University magazine Notebooks, no.

1, 1994, pp. 102-09.

John A. Walker is a painter and art historian. He is the author of several books

about art and mass media. He is also an editorial adviser for the website:

"http://www.artdesigncafe.com">www.artdesigncafe.com</a>