Pictorial Realism

by

Jiachen Liu

• LAST MODIFIED: 17 April 2025
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0445

Introduction

The term realism has multiple meanings in the study of pictures. Roughly speaking, it concerns both what pictures depict—that is, “realism-what”—and how pictures depict, or “realism-how.” Realism-what reflects a particular interest in the selection of a picture’s subject matter, which is self-consciously championed by the 19th-century Realist school of painting but can also be found throughout the history of art. Realism-how, on the other hand, deals with a special way of depiction that is characterized by the accuracy and informativeness of pictures. Although both of these aspects of realism are of historical and theoretical interest, but it is realism-how that has received more attention in the philosophical discussion and is considered a central topic in the philosophy of pictorial representation within the analytic tradition. There are three widely accepted features of pictorial realism, as I shall call it. First, pictorial realism is a property that can be attributed to individual pictures, pictorial systems, styles, genres, and techniques. It makes perfect sense to say that the Mona Lisa is a realistic picture and color photography is a pictorial system that is realistic. Second, realism is comparative and a matter of degree. For example, arguably, Picasso’s last self-portrait (1972) is less realistic than his first (1896). Third, realism can be relative in the sense that the judgment of realism can vary due to different factors, such as cultural conventions, contexts of use, etc. In the contemporary literatures, there are at least three kinds of theories of pictorial realism: resemblance theories, information theories, and habituation theories. Both resemblance theories and information theories spell out pictorial realism in terms of the depiction of properties. The difference is that resemblance theories appeal to the concept of resemblance, or the sharing of properties between pictures and their subjects, whereas information theories focus on how the properties a picture depicts its subject as having can convey information about its subject. Nelson Goodman rejects both kinds of theories and proposes instead the habituation theory, which claims that realism is just a matter of familiarity or habituation. There are also accounts of pictorial realism that are hard to categorize which appeal to perception and make-believe theories but are closely related to one or other of these kinds of theories in various ways. (For theories of pictorial representation in general, which would shed light on the understanding of pictorial realism, see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy entries “Depiction” and “Images.” For realism in film or photography, see the section “Film Realism” in the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy entry “Philosophy of Film”).

General Overviews

Hyman and Bantinaki 2021 is a detailed encyclopedia entry on depiction and it has a short but helpful section on pictorial realism. Abell 2023 is another encyclopedia entry that is dedicated to realism in painting and sculpture but can be used as a guide to pictorial realism in general. Gombrich 1960 is a seminal work on pictorial representation that focuses especially on the development of realistic techniques in Western art. Hyman 2006 discusses the concept of realism in general and specific realistic techniques such as perspective in particular. Kulvicki 2013 introduces different theories of pictures and images, and it has a chapter on pictorial realism that is organized in a useful conceptual framework. Lopes 2006 introduces the various notions of pictorial realism in a comprehensive way. Prinz 2021 is an article discussing the topic from the perspectives of both art history and philosophy.

• Abell, Catharine. “Realism.” In The Routledge Companion to the Philosophies of Painting and Sculpture. Edited by Noël Carroll and Jonathan Gilmore, 167–175. New York: Routledge, 2023.

  Suggests a way to understand realism by applying the norms of narrative realism to the field of pictorial realism, and makes an interesting distinction between extra-representationally realism and intra-representationally realism. The former concerns what a picture is about, while the latter concerns the figurative content of a picture.

• Gombrich, Ernst. Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. London: Phaidon, 1960.

  A seminal work on the psychology of pictorial representation. Gombrich argues that the development of Western art—essentially the art of ancient Greece and Rome and the art of western Europe from Giotto to Cezanne—consists in a series of discoveries about the nature of visual perception, and the means by which the effect of visible objects on our senses can be simulated.

• Hyman, John. The Objective Eye. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

  DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226365541.001.0001

  A general study of the visual arts, focusing on the relationship between optics and the theory of art. The three sections of the book discuss the reality of colors, the theory of depiction, and the nature of realistic art. The last three chapters explore the analogies and dis-analogies between pictures and descriptions in words, the concept of realism in art theory, and the Renaissance system of perspective.

• Hyman, John, and Katerina Bantinaki. “Depiction.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2021.

  Has a section on pictorial realism that distinguishes two different notions of realism: realism in terms of subject matter and realism in terms of technique. Also provides a critical examination of the theory proposed in Goodman 1968 and a brief introduction to the theory developed in Hyman 2006.

• Kulvicki, John. Images. London: Routledge, 2013.

  DOI: 10.4324/9781315884578

  See especially pp. 111–131. The book as a whole argues that the theory of depiction must be based on an analysis of the syntactic and semantic structure of pictures. Contains a chapter on pictorial realism that covers the majority of the literature and structures it into a three-layered taxonomy, comprising content realism (realism-what), manner realism (realism-how), and kind realism, by distinguishing three different ways of representing in general.

• Lopes, Dominic. “The Special and General Theory of Realism: Reply to Abell, Armstrong, and McMahon.” Contemporary Aesthetics 4 (2006).

  Introduces ten different special conceptions of realism that can be multiplied further along three dimensions: pictorial realism as of individual pictures or of pictorial systems, pictorial realism as relative in different ways, and pictorial realism as descriptive or normative. In addition, it examines two methods of constructing a unified or general conception of pictorial realism.

• Prinz, Jesse. “Realism Relativized: A Cultural-Historical Approach to What Images Capture.” JoLMA: The Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts 2.1 (2021): 49–72.

  DOI: 10.30687/Jolma/2723-9640/2021/01/004

  Briefly presents the genealogy of realism in Western art, as well as how the conception of realism varies across different cultures. Also critically examines the habituation theory, information theories, and the attempts to explain pictorial realism in terms of visual skills. Defends that pictorial realism is essentially relative, and proposes a model to explain how it is so based on the idea that realism involves capturing specific aspects of reality in certain manners.