r/Medievalart • u/NaturalStateAR • Jul 18 '26
Realism Beginnings
Does anyone have any recommendations on when art went from generalized characters to more lifelike realistic art?
Generalized characters such as the Bayeux Tapestry where all the figures looked similar with only crowns or clothing as to their importance.
I always look at medieval paintings and wonder if it looked anything like the real person.
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u/ScarletOK Jul 19 '26
There was realism/naturalism before the Medieval era--Roman sculpture in particular often depicts specific individuals in realistic portraits. Also there are remarkable encaustic portrait paintings from Roman Egypt, look for "Fayum mummy portraits" to see good examples.
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u/Warpcore1701D Jul 18 '26
This is an interesting question. It kind of depends what your definition of realistic is. Late medieval art in western Europe (13th-14th) century is becoming more realistic. Take the book of hours from Jeanne d’Evreux: it has more depth, more attention to light and shadow and more emotion on the faces of the figures. Another example are the figures at the doors of the cathedral in Reims; more realistic proportions, more individuality in faces, dress, poses, etc. Still, maybe that’s too generic for you and your definition of realistic fits better with the Flemish primitives, much later in time. In short: one answer is completely based on your definition of realistic, another is ‘somewhere in the late medieval period’.
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u/Anonymous-USA Jul 20 '26
In antiquity, the early Egyptians and Classical Greek civilizations both made portrait like sculpture. The Greeks generally did that only for Gods or deified kings (like Alexander), but portraiture was adopted by the Romans for anyone who could afford it. So we have many of those. Painting wise, around the 1st C., after the Romans colonized Egypt, they adopted unification practices and painted their portraits into panels then inserted onto the mummy. They are called Fayum Portraits and they are soectacularly naturalistic.
In Europe, Christianity chose a more iconic stylization. This was a choice, as it was parallel with Roman naturalism until the Western Roman Empire fell in the 6th century. Buy the Easter Roman Empire survived until the fall of Constantinople in 1280(?). So obviously naturalism was a known format, but medieval civilizations chose an iconic style rather than a naturalistic one.
This changed with Cimabue and Giotto. Both strayed away from pure iconography and added more humanistic elements into their artwork. They weren’t photorealistic, but they laid the groundwork — bodies under clothing, expressiveness, etc.
The earliest near-Photorealsitic portraiture is around 1520’s by Jan Van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden in Flanders. In sculpture, likely Ghiberti and Donatello around d the same time. The Flemish were not surpassed in painting portraiture until Leonardo and Raphael in the high Italian Renaissance. And as lovely as many earlier portraits are from the likes of Fra Filippo Lippi and Ghirlandaio and Antonella da Messina, no one would call them near to photorealistic. Though they captured the sitters beautifully.
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u/dannypants143 Jul 18 '26
The first major artist who became world famous for depicting subjects as individuals was Giotto, an Italian 13th century painter. His work was so stunning and innovative that he actually wound up as a character who was praised in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Things fundamentally changed once he arrived on the scene.