Art history MA student here. Imma try to take a stab at this since no one else has.

Realistic depictions, commonly referred to as naturalism, has a pretty long history in Western art. Notably from the classical era, Plato's (philosopher from Ancient Greece) notion of mimesis is one that positions art as an imitation of nature. He believed that the goal of art is to resemble nature as closely as possible, but by virtue of being an imitation/copy/derivative, art can never be equal to the beauty of nature, it is thus always subpar to the "real". His theory that art is merely to reflect nature is linked to the belief that only gods have the power to create, thus the arts, a human artifice, must be in service to that which the gods have already created.

Jump to the Renaissance (beginning in the 14/15th century) in western Europe, there was a rise in humanist thinking and studies in now what we would refer to as empirical sciences. Art, being considered once again in terms of mimesis, that is, an objective reflection of nature, was largely considered a scientific endeavor alongside geometry, anatomy, optics etc. This is when we see a rise of linear perspectives, a way of depicting space that suggests three dimensionality that arose with studies of the sciences mentioned above.

These tendencies of producing images of illusionosm, perceived as a more or less objective representations of the real were the dominant visual mode until the late 18th century with the rise of romanticism. Due to an array of societal changes at this time, the purpose of art began to change. One factor of influence was the newfound discipline of what we would now call psychology. By studying the body and the brain, people began to understand individuality and subjectivity in a more systematic way. To parallel larger social changes, art began to be percieved as an expression of the individual artist rather than just a reflection of the external world. While painting techniques were still naturalistic, more emphasis was placed on the atmosphere and emotion of the works (which ate subjective qualities).

This paved the way for modernism, whose rise paralleled the industrial revolution in the late 19th century. Modernism is often thought of as a sort of decline if not end of realistic depictions. If you think van gogh, picasso and later Jackson Pollock, it's easy to see a narrative that leads to a gradual but undeniable decline in subject matter with any recognizable forms. That is, the traditional narrative of modernism is a story of development towards abstraction. One reason for this crisis of naturalism is the invention of the photographic medium, the camera. What's the point of making a painting look real if a camera can literally capture the real? A lot of art movements that followed like impressionism (capturing the change and motion of light) or photorealism (artworks so real looking they pass as photographs) can be seen as reactions to the camera/photograph

This is a very simplified version of realistic depictions in western art. The reason why I have referred to this kinda of art as naturalistic is because Realism in art historical terms often doesnt mean something just looks real - it in fact involves a lot of political implications of subject matter, context, movement beyond simply how the artwork looks. Also, this is a narrative of western European art, naturalism and realism differs greatly in art histories of other cultures and geographies.

Sorry if this is confusing and lmk if you want clarification on anything. I'll try my best to elucidate!