"The problem is, non-realism is easy"

Oranges, meet apples. Anyone can create a stick figure, it takes talent to make a stick figure that truly engages an audience. By the same token, a figure that meets some arbitrary standard of realism may well leave viewers cold. Of course, I'm talking about art as opposed to science or craft. It's ironic that what I presume to be your take on non-realism looks a lot like Barbie. For better or worse body image wise, I doubt that your more realistic figure would net a tiny fraction La Barb's sales.  Simply put, in entertainment (as well as other areas), the appeal of realism in the real world is overrated IMO. Stylized, idealized, parodied, exaggerated, slightly off-kilter takes have a resonance that 'mere' documentary seldom matches.

I don't dismiss the pursuit of realism. Whether it is art, rather than craft, (if it is viewed as an end in itself, rather than as a constituent part of the artistic enterprise), is up to the beholder. Indeed, I find it difficult to even evaluate the value of a figure's realism in isolation, outside the context of a work that has some esthetic intention beyond documentary illustration. That's probably just my lack of imagination though. Like any good hobby, people can approach this on multiple levels and take from it what they will - as in art itself.

Architects have always been confined by technical limitations. You can't build a skyscraper until you have structural steel. No doubt artists have liberated by technology to some degree. I doubt however that we see a lot of 'better' art because of it though. OTOH, there have probably been many creative breakthroughs by artists finding ways to express their vision within the confines of their medium. CGI may well be different, I don't know. I do think it is a lot easier to trompe l'oeil than to trompe l'coeur though.

*"True realism in a 3d medium is only an illusion that can never be obtained."*Arp may have agreed :-)

"Everything is approximate, less than approximate, for when more closely and sharply examined, the most perfect picture is a warty, threadbare approximation, a dry porridge, a dismal mooncrater landscape. What arrogance is concealed in perfection. Why struggle for precision, purity, when they can never be attained. The decay that begins immediately on completion of the work was now welcome to me." - Jean Arp, On My Way. Poetry and Essays , 1912-1947. 

 

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken