Realism Painting

"The perfect painter must be able to scrape off his best composition ten times in a row and each time paint it anew in order to demonstrate that he depends neither on his nerves nor chance."
Gustave Courbet pg 7 Stremmel, K (2004)

I do like the quote above because it reminds me of the fact that they scrape down the layers with some of the oil paintings to get the painting as flat as possible to film. But I don't think I'll use it because can you imagine this happening in industry, like hell do they have time to fanny around like that. Time = Money.

Realism refers not only to the idea of a particular era, which, following Courbet, was continued in France above all by that "painter of modern life" (a term coined by Baudelaire and applied to Manet), Edouard Manet, with his predilection for motifs taken from the world of everyday, but also to a method of depiction. The term is often used synonymously with Naturalism to refer to an attempt at true-to-life reproduction of external reality. … By "Realism" in this sense - in contradiction for example to idealistically orientated programmes - we understand any attempt at the faithful depiction of visible reality in painting, sculpture and he graphic arts. … In landscape painting, for example, the discovery of perspective at the time of the Renaissance was a turning-point. The famous Great piece of turf (1503) by Dürer is still regarded today as a model for the accurate study of nature. pg 7

"Realism is not a manner, but an approach and an aim."

The book goes on to discuss photorealism and how at the dawn of the century when cameras were invented this opened up painters to explore other styles as they no longer needed to paint in a documentary style, yet some remain photorealistic painters, and how photography is an instrument of the realism era.

And there's a section on realism in sculpture, "photography in stone".

Example artist Peter Dreher (b.1932)

Painted glasses every year different lighting conditions showing nothing really lasts?

I don't really understand how he didn't get bored of this. It's not really the most exciting subject matter, nor is it as straightforward as it looks, I bet by the end he could paint a glass in a few hours though.

Gumball XV one of the best photorealist still life's. - the picture has a "seductive power."
This painting is pretty amazing. The control of lighting and how it's reflected/absorbed from all the different surfaces is so spot on. And even the way the glass melts the look of the peanuts in the jar behind is bob on.

Realistic painter: Richard Estes, all of the above images are oil on canvas or board and look like they could be shots from a live action film, how did this guy not become a matte painter?

I have actually seen his work before, he once did a painting of Gordon's gin on a billboard and it was my desktop picture for a long time so it was nice to see some familiar work.


Whilst searching for Estes, I also came across another american photorealistic painter called Ralph Goings and this picture blew my mind, just the fact that there's so many light fragments in the diner that look so real.

Stremmel, K (2004) Realism Taschen: Germany.

I was always taught, why would you want a painting to look like a photograph don't beat yourself about it explore the colours and textures and layering have fun with it, but here there genuinely is a need for it to be photorealism, but I think now what would be the point of painting it photorealistically when you could use an amalgamation of photo's in digital painting, so why not traditionally paint it as well but have a little fun with it? It's going to be so much fun.