I have a passing familiarity with the various art styles throughout history, but to my knowledge, they are just styles. This would imply that artists might be capable of producing works in different styles, but that they would choose to make works in the style of their era and location. Or, the photo-realistic works simply don't get attention like the pieces that are representative of era or location. Whatever the explanation, I still wonder when and where we first started seeing artists who had the capability to produce photo-realistic works (even if it was just their own private stuff that they didn't share).

Example. Be sure to scroll down to the 5th image.

Edit: Apologies for the typo in my post title.