From Nature: Realist Works in Mmoca's Permanent Collection March 11, 2010

'From Nature: Realist Works in MMoCA's Permanent Collection' is the last in a three-part series of exhibitions that surveys the major styles of modernism in the visual arts. Abstract and expressionist styles, previously examined in the series, have little precedent in western art. A modern realist style, however, has evolved as a series of personal elaborations on the Renaissance tradition. Although based upon perceptual observations of the world, with the artist "working from nature," modernist realism distinguishes itself from past practice. The artist may, for example, simplify detail, create irrational juxtapositions to produce a "magic realism," or derive works from the sharp-focused realism of photographs. Major artists in the history of modern art have used realism as a basis for their work. Several of these, including Thomas Hart Benton, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Henri Matisse, and Andrew Wyeth, are represented in this exhibition.