I’m asking because paintings, whether on the wall of a cave, or on generally of a King or Queen in ancient times look quite weird. Not necessarily in a bad way, it has its own cool art style, but they are not realistic or anywhere close.
If human beings have a natural talent, photographic memory or incredible artistic ability today where they can make TikToks of painting ultra realistic art with fire, chalk or charcoal etc Why do we almost never see realism in painting/artistic history? I’m talking paintings specifically not sculptures btw
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Partly it’s a question of preservation.
Many great painting works are mentioned in ancient writing, including a famous artistic competition between Greek painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius. Zeuxis unveiled a painting of grapes so realistic that when unveiled birds flew up to it. When he confidently demanded the curtain to be lifted to reveal Parrhasius’ work, he was shocked to discover the curtains *were* the painting and had to concede the prize.
All these great works have been destroyed and lost to time, while being big lumps of stone sculptures are much more likely to survive (although the paint hasn’t, all those ancient sculptures weren’t plain white but were painted to be realistic, with the paint flaking off over the centuries).
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