interest in or concern for the actual or real, as distinguished from the abstract, speculative, etc.

the tendency to view or represent things as they really are.

Fine Arts .

treatment of forms, colors, space, etc., in such a manner as to emphasize their correspondence to actuality or to ordinary visual experience. Compare idealism ( def. 4 ) , naturalism ( def. 2 ) .

( usually initial capital letter ) a style of painting and sculpture developed about the mid-19th century in which figures and scenes are depicted as they are experienced or might be experienced in everyday life.

Literature .

a manner of treating subject matter that presents a careful description of everyday life, usually of the lower and middle classes.

a theory of writing in which the ordinary, familiar, or mundane aspects of life are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner that is presumed to reflect life as it actually is. Compare naturalism ( def. 1b ) .

Philosophy .

the doctrine that universals have a real objective existence. Compare conceptualism , nominalism .

the doctrine that objects of sense perception have an existence independent of the act of perception. Compare idealism ( def. 5a ) .