Realism, also known as "realism", believes that in human cognition, our understanding and perception of objects are consistent with the actual existence of objects independent of our minds. . It is generally believed that realism cares about reality and reality and rejects idealism. Realism has many meanings in the liberal arts, especially painting, literature, and philosophy. It can also be used in international relations.
In art, realism refers to accurate, detailed and unvarnished descriptions of nature or contemporary life. Realism abandons idealized imagination and advocates careful observation of the appearance of things and copying them according to reality. It includes many artistic trends in different civilizations.
Realism is one of the most common terms in literary criticism and literary studies. It is generally used in two senses. The first is realism in a broad sense, which generally refers to the loyalty of literature and art to nature. It originally originated from the oldest literary theory in the West, that is, the simple concept of the ancient Greeks that "art is a direct reproduction of nature or an imitation of nature." The verisimilitude or resemblance of the work to the object becomes the criterion for judging the success of the work. The second is realism in a narrow sense, which is a historical concept, specifically referring to the realism movement that originated in France in the 19th century.
Generally speaking, realistic works have three characteristics:
First, the authenticity of details. There must be true and detailed descriptions, and historical and concrete life pictures should be used to reflect social life. Realistic works infect people with the reality and concreteness of images, so they can make readers and audiences feel like they are there. Vassala's "The Life of a Painter" once narrated some interesting art history anecdotes: a peacock pecking the cherries that Bernazzoni painted too realistically; Giotto's teacher used a brush to drive Giotto to add color to a portrait. flies. This concept of realism has dominated the history of human art for nearly two thousand years and still remains in daily life today.
The second is the typicality of the image. Through typical methods, real life materials are selected, refined, and summarized, thereby profoundly revealing some essential characteristics of life. It can be said that typification is the core of realism and the mark that distinguishes it from naturalism. Life phenomena are complex, and recording life truthfully is nothing more than the craftsmanship of a photographer; realism requires the author to select meaningful characters and events from the rich and colorful real life, and create them through personalized and generalized artistic processing. Typical characters and typical circumstances. As Engels said, it is necessary to "truly reproduce typical characters in typical environments."
The third is the objectivity of the specific description method. The author should use objective and specific descriptions of real life to naturally reflect the author's ideological tendencies and feelings of love and hate from the scenes and plots of the work, without specifically saying it himself or through the mouth of the characters. French literary historian Emile Faguet explained: "Realism is the artistic proposition of clearly and calmly observing human events, and then describing them clearly and calmly. ...To learn from thousands and tens of thousands of real-life events , select the most meaningful events, and then organize these events to create a strong impression. "This is the same as what Engels said. "In addition to being true in details, realism also requires faithful reproduction of typical environments. The definition of "typical person" is basically the same.
Romanticism is one of the basic creative methods of literature and art, and together with realism are the two main trends of thought in literature and art. As a creative method, Romanticism focuses on reflecting objective reality and starting from the subjective inner world to express the passionate pursuit of the ideal world. It often uses passionate language, magnificent imagination and exaggerated techniques to create images. The creative tendency of Romanticism has been around for a long time. As early as the oral creation period of human literature and art, some works contained Romantic elements and characteristics to varying degrees. However, at this time, Romanticism had neither formed a trend of thought, nor was it consciously regarded by people. Master the creative methods.
Many intellectuals and historians regard Romanticism as a backlash against the Enlightenment and a reflection on the Enlightenment Era. Thinkers in the Enlightenment era emphasized the absoluteness of deductive reasoning, while Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling, even to the extent that some people criticized it as "irrationalism."
On the whole, the Romantic movement was spontaneously composed of many artists, poets, writers, musicians, politicians, philosophers and other figures who appeared in Europe from the late 18th century to the early 19th century. , but as for the detailed characteristics of Romanticism and the definition of Romanticism, it was still a subject of debate in the history of thought and literature until the 20th century.
The definition given by Charles Baudelaire is: "Romanticism is neither a random selection of materials nor an emphasis on complete accuracy, but is located at the midpoint of the two, following the feeling. ."
Characteristics
Thoughts
1. Focus on expressing subjective ideals and expressing strong personal feelings.
Romanticism was extremely dissatisfied with the reality after the French Revolution and often idealized non-capitalist life; Romantic writers deeply felt that the rationality promoted by classicism was a shackles to literary and artistic creation, so they emphasized The absolute freedom of creation opposes the strict rules and precepts of classicism, requires breaking through the scope of literature to depict reality, and giving primacy to emotion and imagination. They paid special attention to the theme of love, and also described a lot of people's dreams.
2. Describe natural scenery and praise nature.
Due to their disgust with capitalist material civilization and the vulgar and ugly reality, fear and hatred of industrialization have become the unique characteristics of romantic poets. The majestic nature and strange scenes in the distance, It became the place where romantic writers placed their ideals of freedom. In their works, the beauty and sublimity of nature often form a strong contrast with the ugliness and vulgarity of urban life. Some extraordinary characters often appear in nature or in strange and exotic environments. They cite Rousseau's idea of ??"returning to nature" and regard nature as a mysterious force or a symbol of a certain spiritual realm. Romantic writers not only sang about the natural beauty of their own countries, but also liked to describe exotic scenery, such as the jungles and prairies of America, countries along the Mediterranean, the living customs of ethnic minorities, Gothic architecture, ancient ruins, and so on.
3. Love describing the Middle Ages and past history.
Starting from Scott, to romantic novelists such as Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, many of them used historical themes as the subjects of their descriptions. Their descriptions do not focus on reflecting the historical reality, but on expressing their own imagination. They often just capture a small episode in history. This small episode is not detailed in the history books and can be left to the author's free will. Some romantics beautified the feudal patriarchal system of the Middle Ages and regarded the Middle Ages as a "golden age" to oppose capitalism.
4. Pay attention to folk literature, especially medieval folk literature.
In both Germany and Britain, Romanticism began with the collection of medieval folk literature, and the slogan "Back to the Middle Ages" was also raised. This is because medieval folk literature is not bound by the strict rules and precepts of classicism. It has rich imagination, sincere emotions, free expression and popular language.
Technology
1. Romantic literature has made fruitful explorations into various art forms, and the most outstanding achievement is poetry, among which the verse novels are particularly eye-catching. of creation. The poetic novel is developed on the basis of poetic drama. It has a broad vision and expands the scope of poetry to reflect reality.
2. Romantic literature is accustomed to contrast, exaggeration and imagination, and the wording tends to be gorgeous. The Romantics sought strong artistic effects, pursued unusual plots, described unusual events, portrayed unusual characters, and created extraordinary, lonely rebellious images, all of which were inseparable from the techniques of contrast, exaggeration, and imagination.
3. The melancholy and sentimental mood is loved by romantic writers. Melancholy is a mental state caused by the incompatibility between romantics and the surrounding reality. It includes both the nostalgic melancholy of the aristocracy and the melancholy of the bourgeoisie who are dissatisfied with reality. The "disease of the century" is melancholy, and Rene is a typical example.