HOWARD NEUFELD, artist

Realism as Reality; Reality as Realism:

Is reality realism - is realism reality ?

Is realism only an illusion of reality?

Is reality only an illusion of reality?

Is realism via illusionism reality,, or is reality via illusionism realism?

Is the golden section reality?

Is geometry reality?

Is mathematics reality discovered by human beings, or is mathematics reality without human discovery?

Is mathematics reality itself or just a language to describe and/or define reality?

Is the reality of mathematics discovered via imagination?

Our concept of reality took its biggest shift since Isaac Newton with Einstein's Special (1905) then General (1915) Theories of Relativity in the early twentieth century. Eventually they were confirmed on all levels of observable reality from the atomic to the cosmic level. Suddenly space and time were no longer independent and absolute, which flies in the face of common, intuitive experience. Now space and time are flexible and dynamic. Furthermore, mass and energy are also now connected and interchangeable.

Around the same time, Quantum Mechanics, an even more challenging concept of reality was proposed for the sub-atomic level. With Quantum Mechanics, observation was not possible because there were and still are no instruments that can measure outcome on this scale. Reality itself becomes "probabilistic." As Brian Greene states in one of his books, The Hidden Reality, "We can predict the odds of attaining one outcome, we can predict the odds of another, but we generally can't predict which will actually happen." This takes the previous scientific model of using observation and repeatable experimental outcome and replaces it with mathematics in both experimental and theoretical cosmology. This not only changes how we perceive reality, it completely challenges our everyday instincts and intuitions.

What is generally considered Realism in painting is the realistic description of different things within the context of our experiences of reality. To do this, a variety of skillful techniques are used to create these convincing illusions. In addition, there are certain effects that make these illusions even more visually convincing such as giving a form a sense of volume, visual cues that create spatial depth, the interaction of a light source with a surface or with solid, liquid or gas particles; even densities and velocities, among others. I call them the "visual effects" or "visual phenomena" that can be used to enhance the description of any object or space. Because they are independent of any specific object or space, I use them as illusions sometimes seen in Realism within the context of non-objective forms. I call this "Non-objective Realism."

Note: Which brings me to a new question regarding illusionism in the depiction of reality in art. Can illusionism be applied to non-objective forms in visual art, that is, can a technique or process produce an illusionistic image without the intention of describing a specific objective form by the artist and is this a new form of realism?