A headline in ArtForum newsletter, led me to read this Wikipedia entry on Neue Sachlichkeit and Magic Realism.  This is what I want my art to be about. It’s not “magic” or fantasy art. It’s observation of an ordinary thing or scene, and saying “What is it?” (a Zen question)

While the term magical realism first appeared in 1955,^[1]:16 the term Magischer Realismus, translated as magic realism, was first used by German art critic Franz Roh in 1925^[4] to refer to a painterly style also known as Neue Sachlichkeit (the New Objectivity),^[5] an alternative to expressionism championed by fellow German museum director Gustav Hartlaub.^{[1]:9–11[6]} Roh identified magic realism’s accurate detail, smooth photographic clarity, and portrayal of the ‘magical’ nature of the rational world. It reflects the uncanniness of people and our modern technological environment.^[1]:9–10

Roh believed that magic realism was related to, but distinct from, surrealism, due to magic realism’s focus on the material object and the actual existence of things in the world, as opposed to surrealism’s more cerebral, psychological and subconscious reality.^[1]:12 Magic realism was later used to describe the uncanny realism by American painters such as Ivan Albright, Paul Cadmus, George Tooker and other artists during the 1940s and 1950s. However, in contrast with its use in literature, magic realist art does not often include overtly fantastic or magical content, but rather looks at the mundane through a hyper-realistic and often mysterious lens.^[7]

I think of “Christina’s World” or “Winter 1946” by Andrew Wyeth.