Magic Realism
マジック・リアリズム / 1925–1970s / Style / Painting Techniques
Painting whose handling is scrupulously realist, yet whose light, placement and silence tip reality one notch out of true. It uses none of Surrealism's distortions; instead it sets ordinary things down with uncanny clarity, summoning unease and stillness at once. The name comes from German art criticism of 1925.
At a glance
Visual cues
- Hard, evenly distributed light
- Description of uncanny clarity
- Figures and objects held motionless
- Arrangements that are never explained
Best used for
- Brand photography and film stills that must feel calm and slightly wrong: fragrance, luxury goods, speculative fiction
- Editorial illustration for essays whose subject is ordinary life seen from an angle that will not resolve
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Dictionary entry
- Type
- A quiet serif set small and clear of the image so it never explains it
- Composition
- Figures and objects held still and apart, the gap between them left unexplained
- Material
- Hard even shadowless light, edges kept sharp, on a matte stock with no gloss
- Caution
- Reaching for melting clocks and impossible bodies: the moment the description breaks, the work is Surrealist, and the particular chill of the ordinary held too clearly is gone.
- Further study
- Franz Roh's coining of the term in 1925 / Its relation to New Objectivity / The term's transfer to Latin American literature
Related entries
- New Objectivity Photography (新即物主義写真)Shared effects: Calm.Compare Magic Realism and New Objectivity Photography
- Surrealism (シュルレアリスム)Shared effects: Calm.Compare Magic Realism and Surrealism
Often confused with
More from Painting Techniques
Continue through styles in the same Painting Techniques family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Gradient Mesh (グラデーション・メッシュ)Shared effects: Luxury / Calm.
- Chiaroscuro (キアロスクーロ)Shared effects: Calm / Luxury.
- Novecento Italiano (ノヴェチェント・イタリアーノ)Shared effects: Luxury / Calm.
Browse all Painting Techniques entries
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- https://indexstyle.org/styles/magic-realism
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