Photorealism

Photorealism is the genre of painting resembling a photograph, most recently seen in the splinter hyperrealism movement. However, the term is primarily applied to paintings from the photorealism art movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s America, where it was also commonly labeled superrealism, new realism and sharp focus realism and was dominated by painters.

The term Photorealism was first coined by New York City art dealer Louis K. Meisel. Although predominantly an American movement, in the early 2000s a group of European hyperrealist artists began to emerge.

Photorealists took their cues from photographic images, often working systematically from photographic slide projections onto canvases and using techniques such as gridding to preserve accuracy. The photorealist style is tight and precise, often with an emphasis on imagery that requires a high level of technical accuracy.

Photorealism can be contrasted with the similarly literal style found in trompe l'oeil paintings of the 19th century. However, trompe l'oeil paintings tended to be carefully designed, very shallow-space still-lifes with illusionistic gimmicks such as objects seeming to lift slightly from the painting. The photorealism movement moved beyond this double-take illusionism to tackle deeper spatial representations.

Photorealism Artists:

   Baeder, John
   Bell, Charles
   Blackwell, Tom
   Close, Chuck
   Estes, Richard
   Flack, Audrey
   Goings, Ralph
   Kleemann, Ronald
   Schonzeit, Ben