Cynical realism

Fang Lijun

 Cynical realism is really a contemporary movement in Chinese art, especially in the form of painting techniques that began within the 1990s. Starting in Beijing, it is the most used Chinese contemporary art movement in mainland China. It arose from the search for individual expression by Chinese artists that broke away from the collective mindset that existed since the Cultural Revolution. The major themes tend to focus on socio-political issues and events since Revolutionary China (1911) to the current. These include creating a, usually humorous and post-ironic, take on a realist perspective and interpretation of transition that Chinese society may be through, from your creation of Communism to today’s industrialization and modernization.
Artists related to Cynical Realism include Fang Lijun, Liu Wei, and Yue Minjun.

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper, Summer Interior 1909, Whitney Museum of American Art
Edward Hopper (1882-1967) would be a prominent American paintings realistic and printmaker. Hopper is the most modern from the American realists, as well as the most advanced. While most popularly noted for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a water colorist and printmaker in etching. In both his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of contemporary American life.
Hopper’s teacher, artist Robert Henri, encouraged his students to use their art to “make a stir in the world”. He also advised his students, it isn’t the niche that counts but that which you feel about it and lose focus on about art and paint pictures of what you are interested in your life. In this way, Henri influenced Hopper, along with famous students George Bellows and Rockwell Kent, and motivated these to render realistic depictions of urban life. Some artists in Henri’s circle, including another teacher of Hopper’s, John Sloan, became members of “The Eight”, also referred to as the Ashcan School of American Art. His first existing oil painting to hint at his famous interiors was Solitary Determine a Theater (c.1904). During his student years, Hopper also painted a large number of nudes, still lives, landscapes, and portraits, including his self-portraits.