Contextual Studies - Realism

In our last contextual studies lesson we looked at realism, marxism, and propaganda. We talked about the different kinds of realism: visual realism; aural realism; realism of motion; narrative and character realism and social realism. We learnt about what each of these meant and also had a look at other thing that aren't realism - photo realism, magic realism, and hyper reality don't fit the definition of realism.

We also talked about the features realism include. What people consider to be realism isn't - soaps and kitchen sink dramas may be perceived as realism, but there's too much action for it to fit into that description. Realism would actually be quite boring, with a lack of drama to reflect how we would live our every day lives. We learnt a few more definitions in the lesson like:

Marxism - Meaningful to society, art should have a function

Semiotics - Language of symbols

Ideology - Expectations, a subtle form of propaganda.

For our next lesson we need to make a presentation about the essays we have chosen to write. More to come soon!