Hyper realistic art ... photographs that aren't photographs?

[Keith]

A friend of mine who is a very talented artist in the animation field posted this on FB.

Fascinating that while some of us strive to give our photographs something that makes them less clinical, less 'photographic' ... these artist have chosen the other route! LINK


This, for example, looks like something you'd see in the 'Monochrom' thread ... but it's a pencil drawing!

 

[kbg32]

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/762693/Photo-realism

I studied drawing and color theory with an artist named Dale Stein. He produced super hyper realistic drawings and then went back in with an eraser to create positive and negative space. It was unreal...

 

[Keith]

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/762693/Photo-realism

Thanks ... I hadn't realised the style started that long ago.

Some of the images in the link are a bit blah IMO but that particular pencil drawing I linked in my first post really stunned me!

 

[Contarama]

Go look at some DaVinci drawings or Degas for example live and in person and tell me you do not see why they are so famous. They look real. The power of art!

There is something about made by hand that is special.

 

[daveleo]

Go look at some DaVinci drawings or Degas for example live and in person and tell me you do not see why they are so famous. They look real.

I was wondering along those lines.

First off, I love this stuff, and am glad the boundaries between photographs, images, pictures have gotten blurred.
To me that space is a continuum. But, I digress.

I am wondering if this "photorealism" isn't hundreds of years old, and it's
due to material & paint aging that makes the old old stuff look less
"photorealistic" at the moment. The only technical innovation at work here
is the air gun and any special smooth papers (rather than textured canvas) that are used.
The old masters simply didn't have those tools, but in their day, a lot of that work
(Vermeer, for example) was incredibly photorealistic.

 

[lynnb]

I've seen hyperrealism at AGNSW before but some of those examples in your link Keith, are quite amazing. Looking at the charcoal drawings by Daisy I would not have thought you could achieve that effect in that medium. Samuel Silva's ballpoint drawing of the red-headed girl is another I wouldn't have thought possible - how on earth did he get those skin tones with a ballpoint!

Thanks for the link.

 

[Contarama]

(Vermeer, for example) was incredibly photorealistic.

Oh didn't you know? Vermeer had the greatest lens ever made. A pair of perfect human eyes. Stereo.

I have never seen a Vermeer in person but I would wager it looks "real".

Who knows maybe he had a camera? Camera Obscura?

I suspect photorealism is a very antique art...nothing modern about it at all except they have made it easier.

 

[tomtofa]

Some of those pencil drawings are razor sharp all the way to the corners - must be using Blackwings. Papermates and Dixons wouldn't keep that level of resolution. Of course, perhaps they're using mechanical pencils, but the signature, how they 'draw', just isn't saying that to me.

 

[Keith]

Some of those pencil drawings are razor sharp all the way to the corners - must be using Blackwings. Papermates and Dixons wouldn't keep that level of resolution. Of course, perhaps they're using mechanical pencils, but the signature, how they 'draw', just isn't saying that to me.

I read somewhere the other day that there is a pencil available that rotates the lead as you use it to keep that contact area constant!

 

[jsrockit]

Completely amazing to me. I used to think I could draw.

 

[jsrockit]

Some of those pencil drawings are razor sharp all the way to the corners

Ha, good one.

 

[msbarnes]

Go look at some DaVinci drawings or Degas for example live and in person and tell me you do not see why they are so famous. They look real. The power of art!

There is something about made by hand that is special.

I'm not trying to discredit Da Vinci or Degas but their drawings don't really look real to me. Not photorealism real.

 

[Contarama]

Have you seen one in person? Not photorealism real is likely correct but if you have seen one in person you will understand. Yes they probably didn't have a camera maybe Degas did. Probably better examples would be Vermeer mentioned above and any of those Dutch masters Hals, Rembrandt, etc. They may have used very primitive cameras. Many later artists painter draughtsman types embraced the camera early on...maybe not entirely for photorealism though but as a tool to help them.

 

[bsdunek]

I read somewhere the other day that there is a pencil available that rotates the lead as you use it to keep that contact area constant!

Back in the dark ages, when I took drafting/engineering drawing in college, we learned to roll our pencils as we drew fro exactly that reason. We didn't need a special pencil to do it for us.

 

[msbarnes]

Have you seen one in person? Not photorealism real is likely correct but if you have seen one in person you will understand. Yes they probably didn't have a camera maybe Degas did. Probably better examples would be Vermeer mentioned above and any of those Dutch masters Hals, Rembrandt, etc. They may have used very primitive cameras. Many later artists painter draughtsman types embraced the camera early on...maybe not entirely for photorealism though but as a tool to help them.

I have. They didn't have access to the same tools as we do, but I don't think the point of their drawings had anything to do with what we classify as photorealism. You can have the right proprotions, lighting, and atmosphere without making something photorealistic.

 

[msbarnes]

What are you studying in school (field)?

Engineering. But I used to draw too.


This is william burroughs.

I gave up drawing when I discovered that the camera does the same thing for me, but faster.

 

[Keith]

Back in the dark ages, when I took drafting/engineering drawing in college, we learned to roll our pencils as we drew fro exactly that reason. We didn't need a special pencil to do it for us.

There's a youtube clip ... you'd swear they re-invented the wheel the way they carry on! 😀 LINK

 

[daveleo]

There's a youtube clip ... you'd swear they re-invented the wheel the way they carry on! 😀 LINK

I now have pencil-GAS !

" . . . . each lead has 400 million nano-diamonds" . . . . who can resist ?


wait a minute . . . "nano diamond" = graphite atom ? . . . nice marketing !

 

[outfitter]

Oh didn't you know? Vermeer had the greatest lens ever made. A pair of perfect human eyes. Stereo.

I have never seen a Vermeer in person but I would wager it looks "real".

Who knows maybe he had a camera? Camera Obscura?

I suspect photorealism is a very antique art...nothing modern about it at all except they have made it easier.

A great number of studies have investigated the subject and, although most scholars now agree that Vermeer did in fact use a camera obscura, there is still great debate to exactly to what extent he did so. I know a guy who built a room size Camera Obscura and started to paint Vermeers - the guy was software genius and not Vermeer so they were rather static and didn't prove Vermeer used a Camera Obsura.

I agree with Keith they are rather unmoving as art; too much of the talking dog about them - its not how well it talked its that it talked at all

 

[Thanimal]

...I guess Degas would have seen early photography. It was still fairly primitive in his time.

edit: Degas died in 1917, so he likely saw some decent early photography. The Photorealists got going in the late 1960s...

Self portrait by Degas, from Wikipedia: