Photorealism and the Air of Truth - Essay Example

Photorealism and the ‘air’ of truth Understanding Gregory Thielker and Gerhard Richters use of photography as source material for painting, through Roland Barthes concept of air By Ala’a Beseiso Student ID: BES12375929 MA Digital Arts (Visual Arts) University of the Arts London, Camberwell College Research Paper 9th October 2013 Unit 1 www.alaabeseiso.wordpress.com/ www.alaabeseiso.com Abstract: In this paper, I will be studying Photorealism as a contemporary art movement by exploring the interactive relationship between photography and painting as two different forms of visual arts. I have carried out this investigation first by studying photorealism as a 20th-21stcentury art movement in which photography as a form of visual arts is integrated within the painting process to produce a Photorealistic painting. In the first section I will be lookingat the contemporary Photorealist Gregory Thielker’s Under the Unminding sky seriesin which photographs are used as models to create these paintings, followed by Gerhard Richter’s Photorealism and Over-painted Photographs; who also uses photographs as a major tool for his artistic practice. I will be exploring how a photograph is utilized through out the painting process, and the way it reflects on the painter’s emotional and intellectual aspects . The investigation of both painters will be carried out by looking at these paintings through the French literary theorist and philosopher Ronald Barthes lens, in which he mainly demonstrates in Camera Lucida. My analysis is based on his perception of the nature and essence of photography theories,along with an analysis of portraiture from a philosophical perspective by Professor and Chair Cynthia Freeland in her essayPortraits in Painting and Photography. Both investigations carryout Barthes essential ‘air’whichwill show how this concept of ‘air’ can be used to understand how both artists use photography as a source material.  I argue that a painter who uses photographs as an aiding tool to his/her creative painting practicesfinds the literalprecise reality through their mechanical accurate depiction of the real, yet finds them lacking the essence or ‘air’. This essence will become visible inthe final piece by the collaboration of both the accurate mechanical reality mean of expressiveness (the photograph) with the physical translation of the emotional and intellectual experiences by the human hand. Keywords: Photorealism, Hyperrealism, Over-painted Photographs, Studium, “Air”. 2 Introduction: With all the new introductions to new materials and techniques and with the enormous evolvement of digital technology in creating art, more inspirational experiences along with an infinite number of inventive traditional and digital techniques allowed artists to intrigue their motives and intentions in unlimited possible directions. In this regard, I will be exploring how has been utilized by contemporary painters to become part of their artistic experience in the 20th and the 21st century, which lead to the establishment of a new art movement called photorealism. I want to focus on Gregory Thielker’s abstract Hyperrealism and Gerard Richter’s over-painted photographs and Photorealism. I aim to explore how the artist sees his reference photographs whether he shoots them or collects them, and the difference between photographs and photorealistic paintings through Ronald Barthes lens in Camera Lucida (1980). There has always been an intimate relationship between photography and painting, and this relationship has been growing increasingly until today with the invention of digital cameras and High Definition photographs. Photography has also played a significant role in the reinvention of representational and nonrepresentational contemporary painting, resulting in increasing the number of artists adopting photography techniques. Digitalization of photography allowed photographers and artists to manipulate their photos by using a variety of simple to complex techniques provided widely by accessible soft ware’s. This crucial evolution influenced artists working in different forms of media to create a new distinctive characteristics of contemporary art, and allowed a new understanding of the interactions between photography and painting. Converting photographs into paintings: from digital to traditional Photography, which is a form of visual art, has become an inspirational tool under artists’ hands in their creative practices over the nineteenth and the twentieth century. Many painters and sculptors used photographs as a source material and as an aid in their creation of art. Furthermore, in the 20th century, photographs has been utilized to create realistic paintings; resulting in the establishment of a new art movement; Photorealism followed by Hyperrealism. Photorealism is an art movement that involves a precise depiction of a photograph through paint, print making or sculpture. Encyclopedia Britannica definition of Photorealism: Photorealism also called Super-realism, American art movement that began in the 1960s, taking photography as its inspiration. Photo-realist painters created highly illusionistic images that referred not to nature but to the reproduced image. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2013) Hyperrealism is an art movement that is considered an advancement of Photorealism in which a high-resolution photograph is used as a reference for the artist. It has developed in the United States and Europe since the early 2000s. Photorealist use photographs either taken by themselves or collected from any other sources like newspapers, magazines or advertisements as a direct source material for paintings. What distinguishes Photorealism from other painting styles is its accuracy in depicting details of the subject so the final product maintains the look and feel of the source photograph. Photographs depict an unchangeable frozen reality; they are a hard copy of a memorial moment in time. The human memory is unable to document all visual details exactly the way a photo does. They also carry out meanings that remind us of the past, a still reality that will reminds us of a specific moment in the future. However, as all photographs document a moment in time, not all of them are able to bring up the past and restore these memories. In Camera Lucida Barthes says that photographs confirm the existence of a moment in the past, yet not necessarily brings it up. ‘The photograph does not bring up the past, the effect it produces upon me is not to restore what has been abolished (by time, by distance) but to attest that what I see has indeed existed’ (Barthes, 1980, p.82).The Photorealistic painting differs from photography for it is a reproduction of reality accompanied with the artist’s emotional and intellectual visual experience. The painter’s creativity goes beyond this extremely precise reproduction of reality. I suggest that this creative experience differs from photography, as the artist awakens this existence of the past by representing this particular moment in his/her own way. The capability of a human hand to use a traditional painting medium to construct such an impressive rendition of the physical reality, also distinguishes photography from photorealistic painting Conclusion: With the aid of photography and digital cameras,Thielker and Richter found their ways in adopting and developing new paintings techniquesin their creative practices. Thielker obtained his desire to create paintings born out of his own personal experience with the aid of photography, which in Barthes theories are reproductions of reality and seldom carry out the essential ‘air’. By taking the painting medium qualities into consideration while constructing his reference photographs and his actual Photorealistic paintings, he successfully achieved a special essence within his artworks. Richter’s boldness and spontaneity in creating his Photorealism, weather a Photorealistic painting or an over-painted photograph has taken the Photorealism into a new level. He courageously abandoned all rules and theories of painting from a photograph to find reality and truthfulness in the painting medium. The capability of an artist to evoke emotions, arouse intellectual curiosity or inspirations in the viewer is fundamental in art. Thielker and Richter succeeded to utilize photography in their traditional painting experiences, regardless of their painting styles. Both felt the necessity of maintaining the traditional form of painting in order to preserve their essence ‘air’. ‘The emotional and intellectual aspects of the ways we experience art are essentially a matter of how effectively an artwork can elicit a response from us. (Wands, B. 2006). Bibliography: Encyclopedia Britannica (2013) Photo-realism [Internet wiki] Available at: [Accessed 12 Aug 2013]. Wands, B. (2006) Art of the Digital Age. New York: Thames & Hudson Inc. Barthes,R.(1980)Camera Lucida:Reflections on Photography, 5, NewYork: HillandWang Thielker, G. Under the Unminding Sky [Internet website] Available at: [Accessed 4 Aug 2013] Levy, L. (2009) The Question of Photographic Meaning in Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida, Philosophy Today [Internet e-journal]. Winter, vol.53 (4) pp. 395-406. Available at [Accessed 17 Aug 2013]. Alice (2008) On a Rainy Day...Gregory Thielkers Paintings (Not Photos) - 8 Total My Modern Met May 2008 [Internet blog] Available at [Accessed 7 Aug 2013] Thielker, G. 2008, Complete Stop. [online image] Available at [Accessed Aug 24 2013] Fig. 2. Gregory Thielker, 2008, Vortex. [online image] Available at [Accessed Aug 24 2013] Read More