# Realism (写実主義)

> Nineteenth-century Realism replaced myth, idealization and heroic drama with contemporary workers, peasants, urban life and familiar places, changing which subjects could occupy serious large-scale art.

- IndexStyle No.616 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/realism
- Kind: Style · Family: Figurative Painting · Era: c. 1840s–1880s
- Mood: Trust, Rebellion, Intimacy
- What this family collects: Painting that keeps figures and places recognisable while taking different positions on society and reality through its choice of subject, degree of idealization and treatment of the brushstroke.

## Defining characteristics

- Contemporary labor, rural life and urban daily subjects
- Bodies, clothes and tools shown without idealization
- Large formats traditionally reserved for history given to ordinary people
- Restrained color and substantial surfaces for earth, fabric, stone and skin

## Best used for

- Making ordinary labor and life a central rather than supporting subject
- Showing society through the weight of objects, bodies and places without heroic polish

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Restrain headline drama and prioritize specific names, places, work and time.
- Layout & structure: Give everyday people the center and a serious scale, letting working posture and surrounding objects reveal living conditions.
- Material & texture: Use earth, sooty black and muted blue with palpable paint, leaving wear in hands and clothing visible.

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #B49A70
- The colour it is remembered by: #6F5B43
- Text and outlines: #3E4945

## What to avoid

Photographic detail alone is not Realism. Without its choice of subject and refusal of idealization, it becomes only a rendering technique.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: Contemporary labor, rural life and urban daily subjects
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Bodies, clothes and tools shown without idealization
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Large formats traditionally reserved for history given to ordinary people
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Restrained color and substantial surfaces for earth, fabric, stone and skin
- [ ] The layout follows: Give everyday people the center and a serious scale, letting working posture and surrounding objects reveal living conditions.
- [ ] The lettering follows: Restrain headline drama and prioritize specific names, places, work and time.
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Use earth, sooty black and muted blue with palpable paint, leaving wear in hands and clothing visible.
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #B49A70 as ground, #6F5B43 carrying the style, #3E4945 for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Romanticism (ロマン主義)** — Romanticism pushed beyond reason and rule toward emotion, the sublime, overwhelming nature, revolution and exceptional events through dramatic light, diagonal force, turbulent brushwork and extreme scale. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/romanticism
- **Naturalism (自然主義美術)** — Naturalism extended Realism's contemporaneity through close observation of how environment, heredity and working conditions shape bodies and behavior, often using outdoor light and causally legible detail. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/naturalism

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=realism+romanticism

## Further study

- Nineteenth-century French Realism
- Contemporary life and anti-idealization
- Courbet, Millet and Daumier

## Reference works

- ギュスターヴ・クールベ『石割り人夫』— Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gustave%20Courbet%20018.jpg

## Source of record

- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Nineteenth-Century French Realism — https://www.metmuseum.org/de/essays/nineteenth-century-french-realism

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/realism
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/realism/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)