 The term “realism” and equivalent terms in other European languages were introduced into literary and art criticism during the nineteenth century, and paintings and sculptures are still commonly described as realistic (faithful, true to nature, etc.) by critics and historians of art. However, many philosophers and historians of art since the 1920s have expressed scepticism about the idea that some styles of art represent reality more truthfully or faithfully than others (Jakobson [1921/1971] 1987; Steinberg [1953] 1972; Nochlin 1971; Stewart 1997). The most influential exponent of this view is Goodman, who argues that realism cannot be a matter of fidelity to nature, and cannot be measured by resemblance to reality, because our judgements about fidelity to nature depend on our visual habits, which are shaped in turn by the visual culture we inhabit, and the images we are used to seeing and interpreting. Resemblance cannot be a “constant and independent” standard against which works of art can be measured, because “the criteria of resemblance vary with changes in representational practice” (Goodman 1968: 39). “The literal or realistic or naturalistic system of representation”, Goodman claims, “is simply the customary one”.