What's Real?
“Realism” is the style in art that gives you what you expect…and want. It has been used through the centuries to tell a religious story, please a duchess or glorify a city. It is usually not a technique that will ruffle your feathers.
Thomas Eakins may be the ultimate realist in all that he did: painting or photography. He gives us life as expected, even when it’s artistically manipulated.
Yes, there are some horrifying murals of the “Last Judgment,” and paintings of grand battles. Salvator Rosa was as flamboyant as his canvases. Even his landscapes have thunder and drama. But in current times, artists generally use color harmonies and optical illusion techniques to make you feel good.
But “realism” is more than a style—it is a search for the truth beneath the obvious. Even when the unexpected is added, or the work is expressive and emotional, we usually avoid the ugly and unpleasant. Dáithí Magner (no relation) makes it fun. Smart fun. His materials are gathered from the past in Ireland and tell its essential story.
We trauma survivors don’t want to be reminded of the trauma. We don’t want to revisit the bad stuff. We want to tell ourselves that everything is fine and dandy, sugar candy. So artists generally provide an escape from the brutal intrusions on the human and natural environment. We leave the car wrecks out of the landscape and the trash out of the café scene. We leave the sidewalk squatters out of the cityscape. We banish fires from the forests.
This is my painting. This is the way I want Washington DC to be: forever dancing with light and the music of nature. This is the way I want life to be. The style here is basically realist with a touch of expressionism—the running girl wasn’t green and didn’t have big thighs. She smiled at me as she flew by and became a permanent part of the landscape.
I spent many years on The Hill and inside the Capitol building but this happy story is not real. Must art always be an escape from the wrong, especially when wrong seems to be getting the upper hand? No.
Here is the reality. It alarms me greatly when the Capitol building, the grand structure and symbol of open government that I painted for many years, becomes a fortress…barricaded from the citizens who belong there. Sometimes art has to carry a message. Sometimes it has to be the message. It’s the only way I can face PTSD. I have to deal with it. I don’t believe PTSD can be cured, but it can be directed. It can help us reach for the truth and the ultimate beauty—supernatural art.
Robin Harris can make us smile, or laugh or dream. She can help us find the reality beyond the expected. Art gets us through the darkness. It can be the magic that brings us together.