Verism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Verism is the artistic preference of contemporary everyday subject matter instead of the heroic or legendary in art and literature; a form of realism. The word comes from Latin verus (true).
In Roman art
Verism was often used by the Romans in marble sculptures of heads. Verism, often described as "warts and all", shows the imperfections of the subject, such as warts, wrinkles and furrows. It zeroes in on the minuscule details of the human head. Although the marble heads themselves came from the Greeks, this style is extremely different from Greek head sculptures because the Greek would idealize the subject, and liken the subject to a god. The Veristic style was favoured in the late republician period. It has been noted that veristic Roman sculptures were generally credited to a Greek or someone of Eastern background, and argued that this suggests the veristic style is of Greek origin.
Verist Literature
A reaction against classicism and romanticism as unrealistic marked the second half of the 19th century. It was a revolt against a literature obsessed by the past and its own past achievements, and with its roots in books rather than in life. Shunning conscious lyricism and rhetoric, leaders of this reaction advocated everyday speech and a simple style. The poets exalted reality as the truth and named the movement verismo (Italian, "realism").
