Color realism is a

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwor ...

style where accurately portrayed colors create a sense of space and form. It employs a flattening of objects into areas of color, where the modulations occur more as a result of an object interacting with the color and light of its environment than the sculptural modeling of form or presentation of textural detail. The actual color of an object, or 'local color', is held secondary to how that color interacts with surrounding light sources that may alter the look of the original color. Warm light of the sun, cool light from the sky, and warm reflected light bouncing off other objects are all examples of how a local color may be affected by its location in space. Earliest proponents of this style include the Dutch Master

Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...

and

Hendrick Terbrugghen Hendrick Jansz ter Brugghen (or Terbrugghen) (1588 – 1 November 1629) was a Dutch painter of genre scenes and religious subjects. He was one of the Dutch followers of Caravaggio – the so-called ''Utrecht Caravaggisti''. Along with Gerrit va ...

. Recent artists working with this style include the Boston School of painters, such as Edmund Tarbell and William McGregor Paxton. These artists combined vibrant Impressionist pastel colors with a more traditional palette, to create color-realist works that have a full range of dark to light values.''A Legacy of Beauty: Paintings in the Boston School Tradition'' by Christopher Volpe Contemporary artists utilizing elements of this style include Sam Vokey, Charles Tersolo, and Barbara Glee Lucas.

References

{{Color topics Visual arts genres Realism (art movement)

Realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: * Classical Realism *Literary realism, a mov ...