Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of

photorealism Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...

by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures. The term is primarily applied to an independent art movement and art style in the United States and Europe that has developed since the early 1970s.

Carole Feuerman Carole A. Feuerman (born 1945) is an American sculptor and artist working in hyperrealism. Feuerman utilizes a variety of media including resin, marble, and bronze. She has been included in exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution's National P ...

is the forerunner in the hyperrealism movement along with Duane Hanson and John De Andrea.

History

The art dealer Isy Brachot coined the French word ''hyperréalisme'', meaning

hyperrealism Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...

, as the title of a major exhibition and catalogue at his gallery in Brussels in 1973. The exhibition was dominated by such American photorealists as

Ralph Goings Ralph Goings (May 9, 1928 – September 4, 2016) was an American painter closely associated with the Photorealism movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was best known for his highly detailed paintings of hamburger stands, pick-up trucks ...

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

Don Eddy Don Eddy (born 1944) is a contemporary representational painter.Martin, Alvin. "Spaces of the Mind: New paintings by Don Eddy," ''Arts'', February 1987, p. 22–3.Baker, Kenneth"Don Eddy,"''Artforum'', March 1972. Retrieved March 4, 2021. He ga ...

, Robert Bechtle and Richard McLean (United States), Richard McLean; but it included such influential European artists as Domenico Gnoli (painter), Domenico Gnoli, Gerhard Richter, Konrad Klapheck, and . Since then, ''hyperealisme'' has been used by European artists and dealers to apply to painters influenced by the photorealists. Among contemporary European hyperrealist painters we find Gottfried Helnwein, Willem van Veldhuizen and Tjalf Sparnaay, Roger Wittevrongel, as well as the French Pierre Barraya, Jacques Bodin, Ronald Bowen, François Bricq, Gérard Schlosser, Jacques Monory, Bernard Rancillac, Gilles Aillaud and Gérard Fromanger. Early 21st century hyperrealism was founded on the aesthetic principles of photorealism. American painter Denis Peterson, whose pioneering works are universally viewed as an offshoot of photorealism, first usedThompson, Graham, ''American Culture in the 1980s'', Edinburgh University Press, 2007, pp. 77–79. "hyperrealism" to apply to the new movement and its splinter group of artists. Graham Thompson wrote "One demonstration of the way photography became assimilated into the art world is the success of photorealist painting in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is also called super-realism or hyper-realism and painters like Richard Estes, Denis Peterson, Audrey Flack, and

often worked from photographic stills to create paintings that appeared to be photographs." However, hyperrealism is contrasted with the literal approach found in traditional photorealist paintings of the late 20th century. Hyperrealist painters and sculptors use photographic images as a reference source from which to create a more definitive and detailed rendering, one that often, unlike photorealism, is narrative and emotive in its depictions. Strict Photorealist painters tended to imitate photographic images, omitting or abstracting certain finite detail to maintain a consistent over-all pictorial design. They often omitted human emotion, political value, and narrative elements. Since it evolved from pop art, the photorealistic style of painting was uniquely tight, precise, and sharply mechanical with an emphasis on mundane, everyday imagery. Hyperrealism, although photographic in essence, often entails a softer, much more complex focus on the subject depicted, presenting it as a living, tangible object. These objects and scenes in hyperrealism paintings and sculptures are meticulously detailed to create the illusion of a reality not seen in the original photo. That is not to say they're surrealism, surreal, as the illusion is a convincing depiction of (simulated) reality. Textures, surfaces, lighting effects, and shadows appear clearer and more distinct than the reference photo or even the actual subject itself. Hyperrealism has its roots in the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard, "the simulation of something which never really existed." As such, hyperrealists create a false reality, a convincing illusion based on a simulation of reality, the digital photography, digital photograph. Hyperreal paintings and sculptures are an outgrowth of extremely high-resolution images produced by digital cameras and displayed on computers. As photorealism emulated analog photography, hyperrealism uses digital imagery and expands on it to create a new sense of reality. Hyperrealistic paintings and sculptures confront the viewer with the illusion of manipulated high-resolution images, though more meticulous.

Style and methods

The hyperrealist style focuses much more of its emphasis on details and the subjects. Hyperreal paintings and sculptures are not strict interpretations of photographs, nor are they literal illustrations of a particular scene or subject. Instead, they use additional, often subtle, pictorial elements to create the illusion of a reality which in fact either does not exist or cannot be seen by the human eye. Furthermore, they may incorporate emotional, social, cultural and political thematic elements as an extension of the painted visual illusion; a distinct departure from the older and considerably more literal school of photorealism. Hyperrealist painters and sculptors make allowances for some mechanical means of transferring images to the canvas or mold, including preliminary drawings or grisaille underpaintings and molds. Photographic slide projections or multi media projectors are used to project images onto canvases and rudimentary techniques such as gridding may also be used to ensure accuracy. Sculptures utilize polyesters applied directly onto the human body or mold. Hyperrealism requires a high level of technical prowess and virtuosity to simulate a false reality. As such, hyperrealism incorporates and often capitalizes upon photographic limitations such as depth of field, perspective and range of focus. Anomalies found in digital images, such as fractalization, are also exploited to emphasize their digital origins by some hyperrealist painters, such as

, Denis Peterson, Bert Monroy and Robert Bechtle.

Themes

Subject matter ranges from portraits, figurative art, still life, landscapes, cityscapes and narrative scenes. The more recent hyperrealist style is much more literal than photorealism as to exact pictorial detail with an emphasis on social, cultural or political themes. This also is in stark contrast to the newer concurrent photorealism with its continued avoidance of photographic anomalies. Hyperrealist painters at once simulate and improve upon precise photographic images to produce optically convincing visual illusions of reality, often in a social or cultural context. Some hyperrealists have exposed totalitarian regimes and third world military governments through their narrative depictions of the legacy of hatred and intolerance. Denis Peterson and Gottfried Helnwein depicted political and cultural deviations of societal decadence in their work. Denis Peterson, Peterson's work focused on diasporas, genocides and refugees. Gottfried Helnwein, Helnwein developed unconventionally narrative work that centered on past, present and future deviations of the holocaust. Provocative subjects include enigmatic imagery of genocides, their tragic aftermath and the ideological consequences. Thematically, these controversial hyperreal artists aggressively confronted the corrupted human condition through narrative paintings as a phenomenological medium. These lifelike paintings are an historical commentary on the grotesque mistreatment of human beings. Hyperreal paintings and sculptures further create a tangible solidity and physical presence through subtle lighting and shading effects. Shapes, forms and areas closest to the forefront of the image visually appear beyond the frontal plane of the canvas; and in the case of sculptures, details have more clarity than in nature. Hyperrealistic images are typically 10 to 20 times the size of the original photographic reference source, yet retain an extremely high resolution in color, precision and detail. Many of the paintings are achieved with an airbrush, using acrylics, oils or a combination of both. Ron Mueck's lifelike sculptures are scaled much larger or smaller than life and finished in incredibly convincing detail through the meticulous use of polyester resins and multiple molds. Bert Monroy's digital images appear to be actual paintings taken from photographs, yet they are fully created on computers.

Hyperrealists

* Alison Van Pelt * Andreas Orosz * Antonio López García, Antonio López * Anthony Brunelli * Arinze Stanley Egbe * Audrey Flack * Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau * Ben Johnson (artist), Ben Johnson * Ben Schonzeit * Bert Monroy * Bertrand Meniel * Boris Dragojevic * CJ Hendry *

* Charles Bell (painter), Charles Bell *

* Claudio Bravo (artist), Claudio Bravo * Clive Head * David Kassan * David Lynch * David Parrish * Davis Cone * Denis Peterson * Dennis Wojtkiewicz * Dimitri Desiron *

* Don Jacot * Dragan Malesevic Tapi * Duane Hanson * Eric Dillman * Eric Zener * Carole A. Feuerman * Fola David * Franz Gertsch * Frederic Gracia * Gilles Paul Esnault * Glennray Tutor * Gottfried Helnwein * Gus Heinze * Hilo Chen * Howard Kanovitz * Hynek Martinec * Ian Hornak * István Sándorfi * Jack Mendenhall * Jerry Ott * John Baeder * John De Andrea * John Kacere * John Salt * Jorge Melicio * Joseph Canger * José Ramón Muro * Juan Francisco Casas * Juan Gonzalez (artist), Juan Gonzalez * Kamalky Laureano * Kelvin Okafor * Ken Nwadiogbu * Malcolm Morley * Marilyn Minter * Mark Jenkins (artist), Mark Jenkins * Maurizio Cattelan * Michal Ožibko * Noah Creshevsky * Oresegun Olumide * Oscar Ukonu * Otto Duecker * Patricia Piccinini * Patrick Chuka * Paul John Wonner * Paul Thekhttp://www02.zkm.de/thek/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=37 www02.zkm.de] * Peter Anton * Peter Maier *

* Randy Dudley * Raphaella Spence * Richard Estes * Richard McLean (United States), Richard McLean * Robert Bechtle * Robert Cottingham * Robert Gniewek * Robert Neffson * Roberto Bernardi * Robin Eley * Rod Penner * Ron Kleemann * Ron Mueck * Sebastian Krüger * Taner Ceylan * Terry Rodgers * The Kid (artist), The Kid * Tom Blackwell * Tjalf Sparnaay * Willem van Veldhuizen * Yigal Ozeri * Zharko Basheski

References

External links