American realism focuses on common people and European realism on mainly heroic people. b. American realism wanted to show reality without a more important cause, European realism was a movement with an initial cause to upset Romanticism. c. European realism generally wanted a flat, less than perfect look, American realism was more open to visual reality. d. European realism was a movement; American realism was more of a style, or tendency because there was not an organized idea between artists using it.