Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation of outward appearances.
As such, realism in its broad sense has comprised many artistic currents in different civilizations. In the visual arts, for example, realism can be found in ancient Hellenistic Greek sculptures accurately portraying boxers and decrepit old women. The works of such 17th-century painters as Caravaggio, the Dutch genre painters, the Spanish painters Jos de Ribera, Diego Vel zquez, and Francisco de Zurbar n, and the Le Nain brothers in France are realist in approach. The works of the 18th-century English novelists Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Tobias Smollett may also be called realistic. Realism was not consciously adopted as an aesthetic program until the mid-19th century in France, however.