/ree"euh liz'euhm/ , n.
1. interest in or concern for the actual or real, as distinguished from the abstract, speculative, etc.
2. the tendency to view or represent things as they really are.
3. Fine Arts.
a. treatment of forms, colors, space, etc., in such a manner as to emphasize their correspondence to actuality or to ordinary visual experience. Cf. idealism (def. 4), naturalism (def. 2).
b. ( usually cap. ) 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.
4. Literature.
a. a manner of treating subject matter that presents a careful description of everyday life, usually of the lower and middle classes.
b. 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. Cf. naturalism (def. 1b).
5. Philos.
a. the doctrine that universals have a real objective existence. Cf. conceptualism, nominalism .
b. the doctrine that objects of sense perception have an existence independent of the act of perception. Cf. idealism (def. 5a).
[ 1810-20; REAL 1 + -ISM; cf. F réalisme ]