Essay On Photorealism

Photorealism: A Natural Counter to Contemporary Abstraction Photorealism originated in the United States in the mid-1960s in the wake of the Vietnam War. It is an international art movement involving the precise reproduction of a photograph in paint or the replicating of real objects in sculpture. The name Photorealism (also known as Hyperrealism or Superrealism) was coined in reference to those artists whose work depended heavily on photographs, which they often projected onto canvas allowing images to be replicated with precision and accuracy. Photorealism complicates the concept of realism by successfully mixing together that which is real with that which is unreal to a degree not previously achieved prior to it. The exactness was often facilitated further by the use of an airbrush, which was originally designed to retouch photographs. Being entirely representational, photorealism art is a natural counter to contemporary abstraction. Therefore, their canvases remain distanced from reality, both literally and figuratively.
Human figures are also treated in the same detached fashion, which tends to dehumanize them, as in Chuck Close’s Self-portrait (Figure 1) in which he renders himself through the distortions made by a glass tile. The representation of light, as well as the interaction of light and color together, has concerned artists throughout the ages. By using slide machines to project images onto bare canvas Photorealism for the first time unites color and light together as one element. The capturing of light is most especially evident in the highly reflective surfaces of steel and