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The value or beauty of a copy or reproduction does not lie in it's accuracy.
I was going to set off down that route but I thought we might already be in TL;DR territory. If an abstract painting already captures everything you want to see about a subject, is photo realism an irritating distraction?
gbj_tester-
thought we might already be in TL;DR territory
I'm not convinced this thread derail has reached it's full potential yet, please keep going 🤟
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If an abstract painting already captures everything you want to see about a subject, is photo realism an irritating distraction?
There's two main types of painting: bad paintings and good paintings. "what's the point of painting realistically, now we have photographs?" is definitely a TL;DR question. Bad photo realist paintings are definitely irritating. By bad I don't mean technically deficient, but vacant, glib, slick, facile etc. Someone like Chuck Close plays skillfully with the photographic image, he makes it into something else, his pictures embody a process of pulling something apart and trying to understand it.
I love good abstract paintings for the same reasons I love good figurative paintings; they provoke an emotional response: communication with another human being via a physical object.
Appreciation of a work of art can't really be quantified in terms of technical success. Rather, I think we decide if we like a thing for emotional, illogical reasons, then justify that reaction retrospectively by picking out physical characteristics and pretending to explain them.
So, I love a vinyl record because it's physical presence means something, the ritual of cleaning, storing, playing it means something, you could trick me by piping a digital recording into the room and I probably wouldn't notice the difference. Maybe we all all brains in vats etc
PARKLIFE
salad
William.
No
You've nailed it. There are many small rituals that make a significant difference to our enjoyment of food, art, drugs etc etc.
The value or beauty of a copy or reproduction does not lie in it's accuracy. I spend months painting "realistic" images, which some people consider pointless in the context of modern photography.