Refers to the style of Western art that existed from the mid- through the late nineteenth century and developed in reaction to the Romantic style. It is characterized by subject matter, depictions of figures, and techniques that emphasize reality with precision and vividness of detail, including unpleasant characteristics, in contrast to what was considered the idealized, sanitized, and beautified Romantic view of the world. To indicate in a more general sense any phase of artistic tradition where the real is emphasized over the idealized, use "realism (artistic form of expression)."
