– How are people able to paint super realistic paintings today that are much more realistic and better than paintings from the Renaissance period?
In: 0
We’ve had 500 years since the renaissance to develop better tools and processes. Also people have more time and materials are cheaper now, so it easier for more people to participate in the arts.
Paintings in the Renaissance period weren’t hobbies. They were commissioned by rich/powerful patrons for specific reasons, none of which may have required/wanted photorealism. “Commemorate my victory over the enemy” doesn’t, and probably can’t unless the artist was present at the battle, be done photorealistically; they’re conveying the triumph of the patron, not teaching history.
Just look at political cartoons and anima today. We have all the technology to make photorealistic art, but people still love to make and consume non-photorealistic content.
Photorealism in art requires time, training, technology, and demand. Photorealism is difficult! You need to understand perception and techniques, you need access to pigments and tools that will allow for a massive variety of shades and hues, you need lots of time to create the painting, and someone needs to want them.
It sounds simple on the surface- just paint what you see! But in reality, our brains are constantly interpreting massive amounts of information, and most of that information is difficult to replicate. Our brains need to interpret information from our eyes, and it needs to prioritize the information that helps us survive. When our brains get signals from our eyes, those signals include color and shadow and suggested movement and patterns and a thousand other things. The part of our brains that want us to survive? They notice the parts of the image that are important for survival. It looks for patterns that suggest there are tigers in the grass, colors that mean predator or prey, movements that suggest a threat or a potential food source. Photorealism is totally different- it’s about noticing everything in an image, whether it presents a threat, or potential food, or both, or neither. Not only is it hard to teach your brain to look at everything, but it’s dangerous! It means you might spend too much time looking at reflections on the water, and not enough time looking at the predator watching you from the shadows.
Even if you know how to look at an image so you can best copy it in a painting, you need a TON of pigments if you want to be accurate. For most of human history, it was very difficult to make purple or blue. You can’t just crush blue flowers to make blue paint, because the process destroys the compounds that make the flour look blue. Blue minerals will work, but they’re rare and usually toxic. We have all kinds of synthetic pigments now, but our ancestors couldn’t make many paint colors.
So, you need time to learn how to look at the world correctly, you need to be safe enough that you can take the time without worrying about predators, and you need tons of paint colors. That’s only worth it if someone is doing to pay you tons of money for your art. You can’t afford to spend a bunch of time staring at lilly ponds just to make a pretty picture- you could be hunting or gathering! You could be building shelter! You could be finding safe sources of water! No one would spend that much time on art, unless someone else were willing to help them get food, water, clothing, and shelter. For most of human history, no one had time for that. We needed agriculture, money, technology, and politics to create a world where one person could fulfill their needs by making pretty, realistic pictures for rich people.
It’s much easier to paint super realistic painting, when you can just take photo and use it as a model.
Most painting like that are made with very modern techniques like computers and projectors.
Aside from that a lot of hyperrealistic painters use acrylic paint hence are not dependet on the long oxidation (“drying”) time of oil paints. They do not have to wait months until the next paint layer can be applied.
Latest Answers