Chapter 4 - Realism

I had never really taken the time to understand what all is involved with realism, and art deemed to fall in this category. As mentioned in the opening page of the chapter, "realism has been linked to a surprisingly varied set of conventions and approaches". Reading this statement I was very surprised because, like many people (I would assume), I figured that realism just referred to art that looked "realistic". I had no idea that it involved so many different aspects, specifically in its use as political propaganda. I was surprised to learn that Stalin mandated specific uses of realism in the 1930's in order to promote Soviet nationalism. I've learned about this time in world history numerous times and seen many of these Soviet propaganda pieces, but like I mentioned before, I never really took the time to analyze their history in terms of art. Learning about realism as a concept in this chapter will really allowed me to view many different pieces of art in a different light then I have in the past.