naturalism (art)

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In art, the accurate, factual representation of people, places, and objects. Taken to the extreme, the most realistic painting is trompe l'oeil art, which intends to ‘trick the eye’ into believing an object is real. In the 19th century a French literary movement, led by the novelist and social reformer Émile Zola, greatly influenced art theory, claiming that naturalism challenged the conventional distinctions between ‘high’ art, previously classed as ‘beautiful’, and ‘low’ art, regarded as ‘unseemly’ and ‘ugly’.

Although the terms realism and naturalism can be interchangeable when referring to accurate representation, the term Realism also refers specifically to a mid-19th-century art movement.

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