The imaginary plane represented by the physical surface of a painting or drawing, comparable to the glass through which one sees a view beyond a window. In popular usage, the opposite of abstraction. Also, a movement among nineteenth-century French artists who rejected the emotionalism and idealism of romantic art. Midwestern painters are identified most closely with the trend, depicting scenes of rural America, often with a nostalgic tone, but some regionalists also focused on urban life. The tern can refer to the illusion of three dimensions in a painting.
Romantic painting tends to be rich in color, mood, and atmosphere.
Regarded by some as an aspect of American scene painting, social realist artists often portrayed people who were socially and economically disadvantaged to call attention to social ills and needs for reform. It sought to liberate unconscious feelings, and by focusing on dream images, to abandon conscious control. Much European surrealist art shows fantastic and strange scenes depicted in a highly realistic manner. Symbolism favored the subjective over the realistic, presenting ideas in the form of internal or intellectual symbols. THE TEN - A group of ten Boston and New York artists, predominantly impressionists , who broke from the Society of American Artists in 1897 because of its conservative policies.