Social realism
Social Realism is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts working class activities as heroic.
Many artists who subscribed to Social Realism were
painters with
socialist political views. The movement therefore has some commonalities with the
Socialist Realism used in the
Soviet Union and the
Eastern Bloc, but the two are not identical - Social Realism is not an official art, and allows space for subjectivity. In certain contexts, Socialist Realism has been described as a specific branch of Social Realism.
Encyclopedia
Social Realism is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts working class activities as heroic.
Many artists who subscribed to Social Realism were
painters with
socialist political views. The movement therefore has some commonalities with the
Socialist Realism used in the
Soviet Union and the
Eastern Bloc, but the two are not identical - Social Realism is not an official art, and allows space for subjectivity. In certain contexts, Socialist Realism has been described as a specific branch of Social Realism.
Social Realism has been summarized as follows:
Social Realism developed as a reaction against idealism and the exaggerated ego encouraged by Romanticism. Consequences of the Industrial Revolution became apparent; urban centers grew, slums proliferated on a new scale contrasting with the display of wealth of the upper classes. With a new sense of social consciousness, the Social Realists pledged to “fight the beautiful art”, any style which appealed to the eye or emotions. They focused on the ugly realities of contemporary life and sympathized with working-class people, particularly the poor. They recorded what they saw in a dispassionate manner. The public was outraged by Social Realism, in part, because they didn't know how to look at it or what to do with it .
Social realists focused on the ugly realities of contemporary life and sympathized with the working-class people, in particularly the poor. They recorded what they saw with an unenthused outlook. The public was outraged by Social Realism because they didn't know how to look at it and how to comprehend its realism to life at that time
The
American painters
Ben Shahn, Leon Bibel, the
Australian painter Noel Counihan, the
Mexican painters
José Clemente Orozco,
Diego Rivera and
David Alfaro Siqueiros, the
Brazilian painter
Cândido Portinari, the
Italian painter
Renato Guttuso and the
Portuguese painter Júlio Pomar are all examples of Social Realists.
Social Realism in
cinema is exemplified by Italian
directors Roberto Rossellini,
Luchino Visconti,
Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Ermanno Olmi; English director
Ken Loach; Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodysson; and the Brazilians Nelson Pereira dos Santos and
Walter Salles, among others.
Dorothy Hewett, an Australian poet and playwright, and
Carl Sandburg, an American poet and
novelist can both be considered examples of a Social Realist author.
External links
- . Chronological list of social realists in the visual arts.
- . Social realism in film.
- Discusses both movements in the visual arts.
