The twentieth century introduced a new group of writers and artists who brought something new to the ever evolving style of realism. They took inspiration from other authors and painters, and this is evident in their works, but they still managed to put their own unique spin on it. William Dean Howells, George Bellows, Robert Henri, and Kurt Vonnegut are four notable realists whose works are still discussed today.
William Dean Howells was an American novelist whose writing changed course to realism in his fifties with Tolstoy as his inspiration. His general idea behind writing was that “everything real in human nature is valuable, and that nothing unreal is valuable except by way of sportive interlude” (“William Dean Howells”). He had a few romantic qualities that were shown in The Shadow of a Dream, but he also managed to write romance without leaving a mocking after-taste, as shown in April Hopes.
George Wesley Bellows was an American painter who drew everyday life and normal houses by choice. He often talked about how he found the expression of life more interesting than art, so many of his paintings showed things like children in the streets or crowds of people. One of his greatest works was Edith Cavell, which depicted the terrors of war. Even though this is considered by many to be his best painting, Joseph Pennell criticized it rather harshly. Regardless of this, though, he was quoted saying, “I am sick of American buildings like Greek temples and of rich men building Italian homes” (“George Wesley Bellows”). Robert Henri was also an American painter of the twentieth century. When he began teaching at the Women’s School of Design he joined a group of realists, and after this began teaching. He became known for putting “em...
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Ultimately, by the time of Peter Romanov in the late seventeenth century, Russia had done little to keep up with the modernizing European continent. Technologically and culturally, it fell centuries behind. It had no Renaissance, no Reformation, no Scientific Revolution. It’s as if Russia was stuck in the European Middle Ages. Its army and navy lagged miserably behind, its Orthodox clergy govern education, there was no quality literature or art of which to tell, and even no emphasis on maths or science. In Western Europe, the seventeenth century was the time of Galileo and Newton, Descartes and Locke. It was a century of a growing merchant division. Rural peasants moved to growing cities for new work. As serfhood faded off in the West, it was growing in the Russia inherited by Peter Romanov. And while Western Europe, with its numerous warm-water passageways, sailed the seas and brought in unprecedented profits from subjugated colonies, Russia pushed eastward, finding nothing but frigid shore, cold taiga, and the remnants of a deformed Mongolian Empire that had depended more on plunder than infrastructure.
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While Howells' realism was "romantic" in that he permitted "respectability to censor his observations and insights" (Trachtenberg, 191) and allowed his characters to fall into the miasma of what he believed to ...
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By reviewing the authors during the naturalism and realism movements of literature, it soon becomes clear which writers supported which view. While every one of them were sure to have different views on certain matters, many used their fiction to show a more reasonable if upsetting life. These inspiring authors told tales that represented many things they believed and had confidence in. There were many before these men and women who shared their ideas on paper and there will doubtlessly be countless still to come.
Gavin argues, “During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, empirical philosophy recognized a perilous disconnect between knowledge and the actual existence of things in the world” (Gavin 301-325). These ideas of knowledge, and those of the real world, were shaped by Descartes’ theory that reality is perceived by the individual and is not attached to previous ideas of reality. Unlike the novels before, realistic novels appealed to middle-class readers who wanted to read about ordinary people; they could see themselves as main characters in the story (Mario). With the influence of Descartes, novels and the genre of realism came together forming realistic novels. Realism is the attempt to depict all characteristics of human life with such attention to detail that the events seem as realistic as possible, as if readers could perhaps know the characters personally or even be them. Regarding Crusoe, he faces many realistic chall...