Realism in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation.

The term is also used to describe works of art which, in revealing a truth, may emphasize the ugly or sordid.

Roots In France

It was a dominant current in French art between 1850 and 1880. It refers to a mid-19th century cultural movement with its roots in France, where it was a very popular art form around the mid to late 1800’s. It came about with the introduction of photography - a new visual source that created a desire for people to produce things that look “objectively real”.

Romanticism v/s Realism

Realism was heavily against romanticism, a genre dominating French literature and artwork in the mid 19th century. Undistorted by personal bias, Realism believed in the ideology of objective reality and revolted against exaggerated emotionalism. Truth and accuracy became the goals of many Realists.

Aesthetism v/s Realism
In the visual arts, an aesthetic that promotes accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life. Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favour of close observation of outward appearances.

Visual Art

Realists render everyday characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in a "true-to-life" manner. Realists tend to discard theatrical drama, lofty subjects and classical forms of art in favor of commonplace themes.

However no art can ever be fully realistic. Distortion in form, simplification of details are required for any painting.

Newer Forms

Taking this argument further, newer forms of art like Surrealism, hyper-realism, Magic Realism have developed in the field of visual art.

Realists
Major realists included Gustave Courbet, J. F. Millet, and Honoré Daumier. In a broader sense the term is applied to an unembellished rendering of natural forms. In recent years realism has come to mean the presentation of forms and materials that are simply themselves, not primarily representations of things that already exist.

In Nutshell

Terminology
Term used to describe a certain type of art and literature in mid-19th century France.
Artists
Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, Rosa Bonheur, Gustave Caillebotte, Honoré Daumier, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer.
Timeline
1845-1880.
Started In
Western Europe (primarily France) and the United States.
About
Movement in art and literature that rejected the subjective, emotional, exotic characteristics of Romanticism. Instead, artists and writers concentrated on observable, contemporary reality.
Theme
Down-to-earth, everyday subjects: landscapes; peasants; ordinary, working-class people; observable, contemporary life. Only the visible world is shown; scenes centering on mythology, history or religion were avoided.
Art Style
Emphasis on naturalism, that is, the accurate depiction of nature without it being overly romanticized or sentimentalized. Ordinary people shown with same dignity previously bestowed on images of kings, saints and aristocrats. In a sense, Realist painters tried to do away with a personal, artistic "style" in order to make their paintings more "truthful."
Known Work
COURBET, The Stone Breakers, 1849.
Inspiration
Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Zurburan, Louis Le Nain, Charles Baudelaire (a 19th century writer who called for an art that would use the "heroism of modern life" as its subject), European revolutions of 1848, Socialism, and early photography.
Become Inspiration Of
Pre-Raphaelites, Impressionism, and American Scene Painting.