Hyperrealism

Recently I have seen an increase in the number of "Photorealistic"
pieces submitted to juried art exhibitions; particularly color pencil
and watercolor exhibitions.
Photorealistic art is art where the finished item appears so realistic as to
look like a photograph. This is an interesting return to a model of art that
artists rebelled against in the 19th century after the advent of
photography. The idea of using art technique for the purpose of
representation of a subject in as realistic a fashion as possible was
specifically rejected by the Impressionists, Post-Impressionist and
Expressionists. Art, in the opinion of these artists, should be infused with
movement, emotion, drama and not simply for representation but to look
beyond and for a deeper meaning.

Photorealism as an art form demonstrates technique and control. The physical
challenge of painting in this fashion is tremendous. Certainly as an
expression of ability, photorealistic painting deserves to be considered in
juried competitions. While most paintings and drawings continue to be
"Modern" representational pieces, photorealism is becoming more popular.

Many of the Photorealistic pieces I have seen seem to be expressions of
technique. An emphasis seems to be placed on working with the most ordinary
of subject matter. It is impossible to create a work of art that contains no
emotion. Everything contains the potential for emotion, but in photorealism
the technique is pursued to the detriment of the emotional content.
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Photorealism does not need to be made as devoid of emotion as possible.
Reference the representational sculpture of ancient Greece where realism was
first realized. The human form was idealized and hyperreal, by hyperreal I
mean to say that it was real beyond the attempt to represent an actual
person as the Romans would later emphasize. The Greeks attempted to sculpt
the figure beyond the real, a real more real than that in existence an
idealization. The ideal form as developed in Classical Greece was not
intended to reflect a real person but rather a philosophic concept. Greek
sculpture was often based on concepts like honor, courage, beauty and so on.
The sculptures were realistic representations of non-representational ideas,
often in our age abstractions are intended to express non-representational
ideas.

Hyperrealism is an art school that produces photograph like realistic
images.

Like Greek sculpture Hyperrealism takes photorealistic representation of
life and emphasizes aspects of the representation, the intention is to
create a work full of emotion and drama and perhaps discomfort. Check out
this self-portrait by Chuck Close, http://www.tfaoi.com/cm/2cm/2cm646.jpg at
the Walker Art Center, the monumental size, the use of color, the strange
perspective, the relationship of shadow to the glare in the glasses and the
emphasis on emotional content in the image is a grand example of the use of
hyperrealism. Chuck Close has specifically refused the label of
Photorealist.

The expressionist investigations of Hyperrealistic representation become
studies of concepts rather than imitations of photography. Rather than the
photorealist and the painting of ordinary objects as an exercise in
technique I believe the hyperrealist is the greater artist for using
technique to reach conclusions and reach out emotionally.
At the end of the day, however, it must be the artist who defines himself or
herself as a photorealist or a hyperrealist, but in a finished piece I
believe we can distinguish between the two approaches.

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