A review in The Times called it "a fine performance" with "down-to-earth realism" but marred by a parallel with an English football match during a date and time when there would be no games in real life.

One critic maintains that Ranasinghe "initiated a style of sculpture equivalent to Alberto Giacometti", with works that draw on ancient religion and mythology as well as down-to-earth modern realism.

These were among Caravaggio's earliest religious works, painted between 1600 and 1602, but they are inescapably his, featuring down-to-earth realism and stunning use of chiaroscuro (a three-dimensional effect created with contrasting highlights and dark shading).

On the one hand, its emphasis on western-style academic rather than practical subjects created 'hothouse' institutions conducive to abstract theorizing rather than down-to-earth realism.

James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz begin "The Times of their Lives," their scholarly examination of life, love and death in the Plymouth Colony, with a bit of down-to-earth realism about Thanksgiving.