Realism and Perspective

There are a few ways that approaches and appreciation of realism of art had on politics. On page 146 it explained how social realism was embraced in the Soviet Union in 1932. Soviet leader, Josef Stalin mandated that all paintings must be a form of pictorial realism. It was dangerous to produce any type of abstract art at that time. Some artist was even exiled to Siberian camps if they were found producing such art. The reason why Stalin enforced this policy was to promote nationalism among the people that was unfamiliar with this style.

The term avant-garde means to describe movements at the forefront of artistic experimentation and leading the way toward major changes. In 1917, the Soviet Constructivist Realist Manifesto propose a geometric abstraction and objective form icons, rather then the pictorial styles. The Manifesto believe that by changing styles this will represent the new ways of the arts and modernize the Soviet Union. Another example of avant-garde was when artist Claude Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise came out in 1872. The term impressionism was introduced at this time. Impressionism is a artistic style that the artist emphasizes on light and color. With each painting made by Monet the lighting and colors of his portrait would look different depending on the weather and time of day.

During the Renaissance period artists actively pursued the development of techniques for specific drawings and paintings for the average spectator. The artists during this era realize and learned that they needed to develop a different perspective of their art for different spectators to identify with. We have to realize that every period of history has a different episteme.

Cubism is a style that purposely challenge the dominant model of perspective. The painters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque introduced cubism by developing new ways of depicting space and objects. These paintings had spectators gazing in multiple ways. With these paintings you had to really view it in order to grasp the understanding and the meaning of what the artist is trying to get across. Realism can be tied into cubism because realism represents a style of art that is understood in a particular historic moment and to interpret people, events, and objects . Cubism is a representation of a style of art as well and it also express different ways to view space and objects.