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Complex question. In essence, a realistic depiction of an object or person, should be devoid of style. Something which is almost impossible to find in art, apart from the hyperrealists and photorealists from recent decades. From that perspective, Denis Peterson would be your man.

In a less strict sense, you could consider "realistic figures" as those where there's the least amount of simplification or abstraction from reality. In which case, the Renaissance would be the prime candidate. Paintings before it, by bizantine, romanic or gothic artists, were still heavily stylized. Studies of anatomy, the invention of perspective drawing, the invention of oil painting, even the invention of the printing press, all contributed to a huge leap-forward in realistic representation. However, this revolution wasn't only a technical one, but rather more importantly a philosophical one. This meant, that renaissance artists were still painting according to ideals of beauty, classical canons and sacred geometry, valuing those above realism. In any case, it's a long period of slow change, and it's impossible to pinpoint the exact work or artist which first completely abandoned the old aesthetics and gave the world the very first renaissance art work.

Also, it's worth noting that to paint is to lie, it's illusionism, it's an artifice created to fool the eyes. Look close enough and the illusion breaks, the tridimensional becomes flat, the detail becomes abstract, what was at a distance a clearly defined object, on close inspection is just a jumble of brushstrokes. No amount of realism will ever be absolute and no measure of realism will ever be definitive.

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12y ago

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