With modern times, comes modern ways of thinking. With modern ways of thinking comes new ways of approaching old things. This is done by blending the old and the new by correcting the old with the new. Such is the way with photorealism. This art from, which is dominated by painters instead of photographers, is the making of a painting out of a photograph. This started in the 1960's in the United States and has even branched to another art form called hyperrealism. Photorealism has emerged from Pop Art to act as an opposition to Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. At times, it has been wrongly names as Super Realism, New Realism, Sharp Focus Realism and Hyper Realism.
In this art form, the photo realist uses a camera and photograph to gather information. He, or she, then systematically transfers this information to the canvas mechanically or semi mechanically. When doing this, the artist must bear in mind the main goal of the art form, which is to make the painting be a bigger version of the picture in that of the photograph or make it look like it is a photograph. This leads to the artist's style being tight and precise, making it more strict and vigorous in execution in order for the artwork to measure up to the original photograph. Hence, this art form can not exist without a photograph.
In this art form, the artist must be able to accurately still frame change and movement captured in the photograph to the canvas. In the twentieth century, little change can be seen of the art work from those similarly made in the nineteenth century called trompe l'iel paintings. These paintings, compared to photorealism, are very shallow-spaced still life images compared to present art movement, which contains more depth in spatial representations. This art movement gave birth to a lot of artists. Among its pioneers include Tom Blackwell, Don Eddy, and Chuck Close to name a few.
A lot of people think and wonder as to the point of this art movement. Why not just take a picture, have it enlarged and then frame it? With today's fast paced life and technology that ever changing and fast improving, why not just take a photo, save it in the computer and then edit it using Adobe or Picasa and make it look like a painting? A lot of people have thought of these questions for with this art genre, its purpose is a bit hard to understand. The answer lies in the art form. A lot of times, it produces a better picture than a camera or an SLR does. At times, especially when the artist is very skilled, the paintings from this genre are more realistic. "More real than real" is the saying for this art movement. It is in the process of making the artwork that the artist puts in what he wants to put. He either adds or erases things that he doesn't want in the finished product.
By: Mark Traston
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