Broadly speaking, realism denotes a type of art that aims to reproduce reality exactly.

The paintings concentrate primarily on expressing feelings and moods rather than reproducing objective reality, usually distorting colour and form.

Photographers were trying to reproduce reality with their cameras.

The degree to which the virtual or artistic environment faithfully reproduces reality determines the degree of suspension of disbelief.

"Whereas we, as documentary filmmakers, know that we are not reproducing reality - we're storytellers, trying to tell the stories we find as truly and entertainingly as possible."

In a whole variety of ways, the new narrative challenges the traditional perception of an ordered and coherent world which underpins realist fiction's pretension to reproduce reality in literature.

When he arrives on location, he finds himself in a dreamlike, half-familiar world in which the director, though set on reproducing reality, succeeds only in caricaturing it.

By the time the Photorealists began producing their bodies of work the photograph had become the leading means of reproducing reality and abstraction was the focus of the art world.

The Academy of San Fernando believed that the ideal was to reproduce reality without distortions but Balmori rebelled against this idea.

The development of Impressionism can be considered partly as a reaction by artists to the challenge presented by photography, which seemed to devalue the artist's skill in reproducing reality.