Let Us Now Praise Photorealism

On a late watercolor workshop, we were invited to bring art books to share with the group. I knew that my selection of painters would get at in the most suitable way mixed reviews, but I   wanted to test some nascent theories of my own about painters and painting. I choose two unrestrained b generally-format retrospectives, one Robert Bechtle and the other, Richard Estes, both  reigning deans of photorealism. The reactions were predictable. Tactful rejections of work by my fellow painters on the bases that the stuff looked just too much like photography. “What’s the applicable of painting like that?” This came despite the fact that almost one quarter of the plates in the Bechtle book were watercolors.

Bechtle’s watercolors of mundane suburban motifs are a course into one of the essential contradictions in the nature of photorealism painting as fine art. In those watercolors, particularly in the enlarged details, Bechtle’s mastery of usual watercolor technique leaps from the pages. Despite the photographic effect of the image, there is no mistaking that these are nothing less than extremely proficient and painterly watercolors. The same is true for the watercolors of another photorealist, Ralph Goings, whose back and forth between media had opened my eyes to the use of abstraction to generate an effect otherwise taken for a mechanical process.

Richard Estes shows only oils, and among many figurative purists he is reflexively rejected for the vivid dazzle of his work. Unlike Bechtel and Goings, there are no Estes watercolors or drawings to force the viewer into insomuch as why these are paintings of the highest order. To realize just what Estes accomplishes with pigments and brushes, the paintings have to seen in person. Looking at reproductions of Estes’ photorealism in oil, no meaningfulness how perfect the process, the paintings will always appear to look just like (ready for this), photographs! Duh… 

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Photorealism - 24 items found

	Richard Estes Photorealism Master Art Exhibition Poster Posters $85.00 Bids: 0 End time: 08-Feb-12 14:44:28 PST
	PHOTOREALISM CUSTOM RETRATO PORTRAIT B & W 9x12 free text free FAST SHIPPI Drawings $80.00 Bids: 0 End time: 09-Feb-12 15:16:33 PST
	Richard Estes The Complete Paintings 1966-1985 Meisel Photorealism HC DJ 1986 Nonfiction Hyper-realism Art City Scenes Biography Bibliography $16.99 Bids: 0 End time: 08-Feb-12 11:40:05 PST
	Craig McPherson Important Photorealism Mezzotint Lithograph High Auction Prices! Prints $125.00 Bids: 0 End time: 05-Feb-12 16:51:43 PST
	Gianni Cacciarini Photorealism AAA Etching Francines Leaves Beautiful Piece! Prints $55.00 Bids: 0 End time: 05-Feb-12 16:49:10 PST
	Photorealism/Superrealism RICHARD ESTES Art Book Catalog Painting Art & Exhibitions $25.00 End time: 26-Feb-12 21:59:39 PST
	Ken Keeley Serigraph - Chock Full O'Nuts (Photorealism) Prints $240.00 Best Offer Enabled End time: 26-Feb-12 08:48:37 PST
	Photorealism and Ray Tracing in C Nonfiction $1.00 End time: 20-Feb-12 07:46:38 PST
	Advanced 3D Photorealism Techniques Nonfiction $5.33 End time: 19-Feb-12 06:34:38 PST
	Photorealism At the Millennium Nonfiction $95.00 End time: 17-Feb-12 16:23:18 PST

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Speed Painting Photo Realism

I did this as an excercise for the plan of, quite simply, practice. It's been a while since I attempted anything photo-real... It's very good ...