Naturalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Naturalism - Essay Example In theatre, it has come to mean a ‘natural’ depiction of characters, as if they are not actors on a stage but instead real people undertaking normal activities without a darkened theatre audience observing them. To understand how one term can apply to all of these genres, it is helpful to look at each one separately. Naturalism in art was perhaps given its greatest emphasis during the Italian Renaissance as artists began learning the mathematics and sciences of the ancient Greeks and Romans. â€Å"Henceforth, the surrounding world was to be represented as it appeared to the eye. To this end, a new basis to pictorial composition was given through the invention of linear perspective †¦ Depth was suggested by depicting the progressive decrease in the size of objects and figures as their distance from the observer increases – an illusion which in painting becomes truth. (Lemaitre & Lessing, 1993, p. 17). Raphael (1483-1520) also pushed the idea of naturalism with his focus on composition, balance and unity. â€Å"The movement of the body was now understood as an analogy for the animation of the spirit or the emotions; the external structure of a scene proclaimed its inner content. Everything in the picture was aimed at harmonious balance; each individual figure became an inseparable pa rt of the whole† (Toman, 1998). In literature, naturalism referred to an attempt to explore the base, or natural, causes of events, reactions and personality traits. This was a popular concept in the nineteenth century as writers began exploring the difference between realism and naturalism. â€Å"The main difference between Realism and Naturalism is that Realism seeks to simply explain things as they really appeared to be while Naturalism tries to explain scientifically the cause† (Realism and Naturalism, 2007). Emile Zola and Jack London are two well-known naturalist writers. While