After having a glance at the images of the artworks on the pages of this essay, you would be forgiven for flipping back to the title of the featured exhibition, “American Realism: Visions of America, 1900-1950,” and asking, in all seriousness: Just what exactly is “American Realism”? Unless, of course, we want to consider realism—and reality—in ways that exceed style and strict mimesis.
By 1900, the year that marks the beginning of the period covered by the exhibition, which runs through August 27th at the Muskegon Museum of Art, photography had already made strong inroads into perceptions of verisimilitude or lifelikeness. While painters have always sought to depict the truths beneath the surface realities of the world, photography compelled them to seek new ways to do so. After 1950, Pop Art and hyperrealism would strive to reproduce reality, especially mundane reality, at scales large and small, making art out of perceived reality in order to scrutinize that reality. However, from 1900 to 1950, American artists seemed to agree on one
