What is it?
realism as an aesthetic watchword does not go further back than Courbet, and in the visual arts, as in literature, it generally signifies the search for the squalid and depressing as a means of life-enhancement. It is in fact the total repudiation of ideal art (which in the mid-19th century was necessary). It should not be confused with naturalism, which is no more than the ingenuous pleasure in being able to make an accurate transcript of nature - 'a speaking likeness' - nor should it be confused with its cousin, German Social Realism. Some English painters - notably Bratby, Greaves and Middleditch - practise a style which some critics have seen fit to call Neo-Realism. The crucial distinction is between the realism of van Kessel's insects or even Madame Tussaud's waxworks, and the Zola-type realism of Degas's washerwomen and Toulouse-Lautrec's prostitutes, a form of art which goes back at least to Brouwer's drunken peasants or Murillo's beggars.
Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
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