Realism in art refers to the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life seen from the perspective of the artist. Realism in European art has a very long history dating back to the Greek city states and the Roman empire. For a long time such art works had been commissioned by the royalty or the Churches and as a result most of the oldest art works in this genre had depicted scenes about royal life or the bible scenes. However with the advent of industrial revolution, the decline of the royal houses and the beginning of photography, the realist school gradually gave way to newer forms of art.
Realism
Nonetheless Realism has reinvented itself in various new avatars like Social Realism, Kitchen Sink Realism and till very recently Magic Realism, here artist uses realistic techniques to depict realistic scenes without distortion, which was the artists own creation.
Magic Realism
Realism was introduced in India by the British Art Schools and the first set of artworks that were painted then were popularly called the Company School art. However Indian artists since then had been experimenting with many other forms of art as well, most popular among which was Surrealism.
Company Painting
During the past one decade, with the gradual decline of Post modernism the world over, Realism has once again come in newer forms. In China, during the last decade a style of art became very popular called the Cynical Realism. This coincided with the advent of Super Realism or Mega Realism in Europe. It in this context that a new genre of Art called Pseudorealism is to be assessed.
Cynical Realism
Pseudorealism, also spelt as Pseudo – realism was introduced into the Indian Art scene by artist Devajyoti Ray only about a decade back and has gained in popularity over the past few years. In Pseudorealistic paintings, though the scenes depicted look realistic, the technique used is that of abstraction. In Ray’s paintings, one sees the use of off-beat colours, abstract shapes which do not have any parallel in real world. Yet the over all image looks comprehensible and has the appeal of realism.
Pseudo Realism by Devjyoti Ray
Over the past few years Ray has held many exhibitions both within and outside India, with the aim of popularizing this new genre of art. He has been widely written about in art journals and two recent books. He has also been featured in documentaries on emerging trends of Indian art.
This year Ray’s works will be once again exhibited at the Jehangir Gallery in Mumbai in November. The event will showcase 26 of Ray’s latest paintings.
