Thursday 29 June 2017

Hyper-realistic paintings - critique (copying a photograph)

[This is a reply to a question about the painting ability of masters of the past and the "hyper-realism" painters. I thought it was an elegant reply, and the critique extends to other areas of art. For example dialogue. Sometimes you read an author and what jumps out at you is the realistic dialogue. And you try to write like him (or her). And then you realise actual conversations are horribly confusing and not very structured at all. What you mean by "realistic dialogue" is not that the writer was able to write detailed dialogue, but that he was able to capture the essence and spirit of what made the dialogue authentic.]

The biggest misconception among non artists and amateurs is that more detail equals more realism in art. 

Detail is not congruent with realism
 
The great artists of the past knew that detail without purpose was often the antithesis of realism. The “artists of today” that you speak of rely on it as a cheap gimmick. Copying pores on a face is not art. Anyone can blend an eye with ten thousand brush strokes. It takes true genius to convey realism with absolute economy of brush work. Art is about making executive decisions about composition, line, and mass

Realism is so much more than detail.

Monday 8 May 2017

The Rose

The Rose
by S.I. Kishor

John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose.

His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort he located her address. She lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and one month the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding.