Smartypants…
Photorealism in traditional art
kubixdubix
#42
I’m sure you’ve all been to art museums and seen contemporary art or have seen art in books. there are all kinds of different styles of art. Art historians classify art using different methods such as technique, era, school, etc. I think that art will be what we make it. I’ve known some incredible artists who could draw realistically from real life, or photos, but could not for the life of them understand impressionism. the technique of an artist is up to that artist and what they’ve learned so far and what that artist enjoys.
To think that artists especially comercial artists don’t use photo referencing is neive. Boris Vallejo, for those of you who don’t know is a great fantasy artist who is a master. he paints fine art, book art, comic art, you name it. he uses a technique which is a two step process, he first hires a model, sketches her in the pose from several angles then takes pictures of the model in the pose for photo referencing, he doesn’t draw from pictures but not quite from reality either he uses a hybrid technique (for more he has a book which can be found in bookstores which detail his techniques).
My point is master your technique. If photorealism is a goal you want to achieve good luck you may need it some day, or it may define your style. however I have seen several oil paintings (drawn from life) which individually all look photorealistic but together, look nothing alike. but when drawn from pictures most art work tends to look like the picture, of course there are always exceptions.
Kanga
#44
@mpmumau
Wow,… a guy who has never held a brush, telling me I have no worthwile opinion,…
Priceless.
Weeeeell we make art for people, that is, most of us make art to communicate with others. We don’t do much work for the church anymore due to a surprising shift in economic power. We make movies, ads, websites, games, music, illustrations, buildings, machines (ad infinitum) in just about any shape or form you can imagine and perhaps a few extra you haven’t thought of yet. We get hired for one reason only, and that is we can communicate. Our clients are not interested in our postulations concerning athetics, they want products that will speak to their customers. When their clients view our work they are not given a handbook on how to view it, there is little value in that, the product is bought or not.
I wouldn’t reply to such a post normally but I feel it is the core of what has been done to art.
It took two cavemen to paint Bisons on the first stone canvas. The guy who could paint and the guy who couldn’t but insisted on telling everyone how they should view it. The one without talent is still talking today.
If you look at Da Vinci’s work and see realism then open your eyes there is much more.
When reality isn’t enough (and it seldom is) we take you further.
The art world is kidding itself,… and always has.
Cheerio Chris
jdsb
#45
i think the concept of photorealism dwells deeper into our psyche than most of us realise. the natural human tendancy to mimic ,as did our forefathers , drives to this day ,a lot of artists to recreate what defines reality.I personally enjoy photorealism in a 3d medium, but dont really have a lot of personal experience with traditional photorealistic techniques, would loveto learn some though:)
system
#46
I agree…rolls eyes which would make your entire post void to all of us.
It was so amazingly conceited and arrogant that I wasn’t sure whether to be pissed off or to laugh. As Kanga said, priceless.
Perfectly said. The thing that really got my goat was not especially your self important babbling, but your derogatory comments towards the members of CGTalk. A lot of us, believe it or not, ARE educated traditionally, HAVE worked in the art field in a traditional environment…and if not shrug so freaking what? We are also the public, and are entitled to our opinion on photorealistic art. I can’t really be bothered to make a more in depth comment here, others above have responded with most of the things I would say. Just wanted to add my grrrr’s, and I hope you’ll think next time before you insult an entire industry to which you are not even part of or educated in (which, from what I gathered, you are not. You read a few books. I read a few books on Nazi’s…).
LoTekK
#47
mpmumau:
You registered on the forums just to preach your insulting, condescending, and contradictory sermon to a community of professionals, art students, and enthusiasts? Brilliant.
:rolleyes:
glenn23
#48
One more issue with mpmumau’s academic blathering. If he had even a rudimentary familiarity with contemporary art theory he would know that the term photo-realism refers to specific works by such artists as Chuck Close, Richard Estes, Charles Bell, Ralph Goings and others. The phrase was coined by Louis K. Meisel in the late sixties. Photo-realism does not refer to paintings that look like photographs. At least not in an academic sense. It refers to an art movement.
I didn’t learn this in school. I learned it by personally working with these artists and weekly trips to Meisel’s gallery in the early seventies to see the newest works being created. It was an exciting time.
And you know what? CGtalk is the contemporary equivalent of those times. This is a collective of artists that work and learn from each other. Exciting times once again. We’ll leave it up to the academicians to pontificate about what we “really think and mean”
system
#50
When I first read that guys post some days ago, I wanted to react violently, but then I thought - heck no, I don’t want to get into a flamewar with a person like that. Thanks everybody though for reacting and now I have the courage to say : What a JERK ! :eek:
mpmumau
#52
as expected, i got the insulting posts i predicted simply because i made claims none of you are able to deal with directly. i could go into detail and waste time quoting your indirect rebuttals but heres what i have to say a few in particular.
i made it perfectly clear that it is the audience who decides what art matters and what doesnt. how any of you took that very clear statement and interpretted as meaning that i am an authority on art, i have no idea. most likely you have your own insecurities, and i gave you an outlet to take them out on. the audience, no matter how uneducated, are the ones who have money, and if your posts do anything they show how little any of you know about making money with art.
i’m not even personally a strong advocate of photorealistic art – and by that i don’t mean the photorealistic movement, but rather art that resembles photographs. those are two seperate concepts which one of you earlier back failed to see.
finally, for the person who claimed that im a person who’s never picked up a brush, i invite you to look at http://www.matthewmumau.com/visual/painting/painting.php I have in fact attempted some work in traditional media on my own, and so you’re entire post means nothing.
finally, I would like to clarify, if it wasn’t clear in my original post, that I do not think you need to be educated to get something from art. however, please pay more attention to the actual words I wrote. to speak PUBLICALLY about art – ie to express an opinion that others may read – you should be educated. no one trusts a politician who’s speaking about an issue he hasn’t had extensive experience with, no one would listen. maybe that’s why none of your posts have been published in the newest edition of time magazine – because they’re nothing new.
i did register to this forum to reply to this specific thread. i read forums often, realizing that to even get involved in them invites trouble, if you want to address actual issues.
i did however make a point about art as it represents photographs, and i wont waste my time repeating it, as you are all obvious more educated than i am, and as a result are likely capable of re-reading.
i hoped in my post i’d make a little more of a difference, in spending so much time writing, in showing people how much needs to be said to actually matter. most of you post a few opinionated words and boost your own egos. im here to say that is wrong. if you’re going to make claims, you have to do them in a way that attempts to gaurd against any criticism anyone else may have. otherwise, save them until you can say something with meaning.
im sorry that i wasted my time trying to talk to a bunch of arrogant fools, who’ll continue to be broke artists.
system
#53
Jesus, you really want to be eaten alive, huh? Nobody insulted you more than you did with your attack on this community as a whole.
Please stop dragging up threads that were a) A duplicate topic of another thread anyway and b) Have gone past the point of lively discussion and have just turned into flame fests that nobody really cares about anymore.
Considering you hate this forum and it’s members so much, I sincerely hope this is the last we will see of yourself.
urgaffel
#54
For one thing, you don’t have to write an essay to make a difference.
Second, of course it’s wrong to just post a few opinionated words and boost your own ego. On the other hand, your first post could be read as a lot of words to boost your ego by telling each and everyone “you know shit about art, you are uneducated and only post silly ego-boosting one-liners” (no, not your actual words, but it sums it up fairly well IMO)
Third, making claims that guard against any criticism invites fairly convoluted arguments. You should be able to defend your claims against criticism by arguing for them but to make a self contained claim is rather boring. We’d only end up stating the obvious 
Lastly, arrogant fools who’ll continue to be broke artists? Please, sure there are broke artists out there (doesn’t mean they are fools nor arrogant…) but more than you think actually make a living on our art however hard that might be to accept for you. As for arrogant fools… You come across as quite the arrogant fool yourself.
Have a happy life in your bubble.
Kargokultti
#55
I rather think that what we have here is a so-called troll. To log onto a forum to shoot out a first post like that…
To my mind, this thread is an excellent illustration on the ultimate worthlessness in pontificating. I like worthless pontificating, and I think there is some worth to be found in it. But what is of the utmost importance is whether or not you walk the walk. Talk is cheap.
Looking at his website, mpmumau has obviously taken the occasional jaunt. But this does not make him an expert. Nor does a 6 years’ worth of English lit. So I suggest that we can now safely disregard his posts.
(Off to earn some money with art. As if that’s any kind of a token of worth.)
PSR
#56
A photograph can be viewed as an object, just like any other object in the world.
So, why not paint a photograph?
just as you would paint a vase of flowers, a landscape or a portrait.
You could simply view the image at the start of this thread, as a still life, of a
photograph. 
Mikewilson2k5
#58
You don’t like it because it’s better?
In all honestly most of your opinions just don’t make sense, it’s art, the fact that you are disputing that is incredible!
You can either like it or not, but its’ merit stands.
This Painting is from a photo, correct? Then… Why if they did the same thing, and just made their’s look alot better, are you disregarding it as art?
glenn23
#59
PSR wrote
A photograph can be viewed as an object, just like any other object in the world.
So, why not paint a photograph?
just as you would paint a vase of flowers, a landscape or a portrait.
You could simply view the image at the start of this thread, as a still life, of a
photograph
That’s just the idea behind a lot of the photorealist school painters. Richard McLean is famous for painting photos out of equestrian magazines. Very often the artists would pick banal subject matters to draw attention to the fact that they were simply paintin photographs. It was an outgrowth of “pop art” in a way.
I guess banal glamour studio shots might be considered appropriate subject matter for a “photorealist” painter but I don’t think Dru Blair has that in mind when he paints his works.
PSR
#60
Possibly not. Quite often artists highlight issues through their work, without necessarily realising it. It’s merely a side effect of their work process.
I’m personally very engaged by this type of problem. And reading the comments it elicits, is interesting. I particularly enjoyed this:
There is another, very closely related discussion a few threads down. I’m sure you’ve seen it: