[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.
