I have noticed a correlation between realism in art, and a focus on materialism, a sense of superiority, and aggression. State art in Germany promoted by the Nazis around the period of the second world war was highly realistic. In Russia and China, huge government posters of leaders and the `right' ways, were the same and perhaps still are. Statues in Russia were highly realistic. It is somewhat shocking, therefore to see a similarity in the new high realism in Canada.

Architecture that is blocky, assumes a dominance over its surroundings, and aggressive has been called fascist and was prevalent during the era of the second world war as well. Today many of our modern buildings, and even individual `monster' houses smack of this same style.

It is not surprising that characteristics of art and architecture in a materialistic society are smooth, grandiose, and tend towards inhumanity of form.




"A cultural development that tended to separate religion, philosophy, art, and science from the pursuit of practical everyday tasks has enhanced this realism to a point where it has abandoned interpretative abstract form and degenerated into a mere indicator of the physical presence of desirable and otherwise emotionally `thrilling' things. The extreme example can be found in our commercial `art' and entertainment. Art becomes a substitute for the physical world, and an escape to a more pleasurable fictitious reality. According to Herbert Kuhn there is a relationship between artistic realism and civilizations based on exploitation and consumption." (173)
Rudolf Arnheim




"But it is characteristic of the photo realist approach that, even when the figure is present, it is treated as still life - or, rather as simply spots of light and shade, or color, like any others, on a flat surface... what one misses is not the absence of images of people in the pictures but the absence of a person - an artist - inside of them." (174) Thomas Albright




"Correct representation " or "style of realism may come, paradoxically, from a kind of artist who is detached from the values and objectives of reality, who aspires to faithful reproduction of appearances for its own sake or is carried away by the stimulating charms of complex form. The aesthetic assertion that it did not matter whether a work of art represented a cabbage or a Madonna came from a school of realists. Therefore, the rapid change from high impressionism to highly abstract styles such as cubism or Nonobjective Art is not necessarily what it appears to be on the surface, namely a complete volte-face from the most careful service of reality to the boldest disregard of it. The extreme concreteness of realism and the extreme abstractness of some modern art may express an identical aloofness from reality, if by reality we intend the deeper meaning of life and nature." (175)
Rudolf Arnheim




"... he believed only in authenticity, the undiluted expression of sincerity. In his work as a whole, in his manner of creating, he remained essentially an anarchist. This is why classical compositions appear side by side with compositions in shorthand, and at the same time austere works of Cubist inspiration are followed by monsters of an unleashed fantasy. His courage, which made him prefer sincerity to perfection, gave him a previously unknown freedom." (176)
About Pablo Picasso by Hans L.C. Jaffe




173. Rudolf Arnheim, Toward a Psychology of Art, (Berkeley and L.A., Cal., University of California Press, 1966), p.43 , footnote
174. Thomas Albright, On Art and Artists, (U.S.A., The Chronicle Publishing Co., 1989), p.131
175. Rudolf Arnheim, Toward a Psychology of Art, (Berkeley and L.A., Cal., University of California Press, 1966), p.48
176. Hans L.C. Jaffe, Pablo Picasso, (N.Y., Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1964), p.44