Why did it take so long for realism to appear? Couldn't

Perspective isn't actually an obvious thing unless someone tells you about it.

A lot of artists did detailed stuff but until one-point perspective was invented it all looked kind of flat and silly. You can't even construct properly if you don't know about perspective and what it does.

The realistic stuff was sculpted

Also what you posted is a drawing copied from a photo, obviously that was impossible when photography was not invented yet.

>>3046465
Have you seen most of /ic/? These dudes already have books and education and internet to help them out and they still can't achieve realism.

Now imagine if you have no point of reference whatsoever.

what are you talking about there was realism 2 thousand years ago

photorealism isn't actual realism, literally nothing you perceive in the actual world looks like it does on a photo

therefore it's understandable that the forays into realism took different paths

>>3046465
photos didn't exist, really fine graphite pencils and sharpeners didn't exist, art education and education in general was worse and not as widespread, paper wasn't as good, people didn't have access to electricity and nice lighting, people didn't have the same amount of leisure time. etc etc etc

File: Roman_fresco_from_Boscoreale,_43-30_BCE,_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.jpg (92KB, 516x779px) Image search: [Google]

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Realism as in two dimensional art? Because any look at ancient Greek statues should tell you that realism has existed for quite a long time. Even then, the Romans were painting using perspective long before the Renaissance happened.
Regardless, art just wasn't something people could afford to invest time on before then. Plus, we didn't have the technology to produce refined tools and mediums used in art. For all we know, some guy might've been producing photorealistic artwork three thousand years ago, but his artwork simply couldn't survive the test of time.

File: IMG_1240.jpg (1MB, 2592x1936px) Image search: [Google]

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/ic/ here's some of my pictures, is anything bad and if so, can I fix them?

>>3046577
Shit wrong thread

>>3046570
roman sculpture had improved in a lot of ways upon what the greeks had been doing. but something about christianity becoming the major religion made it so art wasnt as valued since icons of jesus were meant to be simple so it didnt distract from the word or whatever, so it kind of regressed in medieval times up til the renaissance

>>3046465
Read Alla Prima. Realism came about when people starting thinking of things in terms of light, rather than forms. They realized that by looking at light, they could paint anything, rather than specializing in specific forms. This revoulution came about in the Renaissance due to the strides made in science and our understanding of the world.

tl;dr - Science is why