'Going From Flat'

Shania McDonagh, Coleman

Photorealism—the art of rendering photographs in oil paint—has been around for a while, of course, with such eminent practitioners as Chuck Close being reasonably well known. Before that, trompe l'oeil, which I've never known how to pronounce, has been around for much longer. It means "fool the eye" and refers to a hyperrealistic style of painting, mainly of still life. (I've also never known how to properly pluralize "still life." I don't think anyone does.) A friend from my high school art room, who I have not kept up with very well, Jeff Coryell, practices a style of painting that might fairly be called trompe l'oeil.

And while this is not brand new, I seem to be seeing more and more of it lately—the art of rendering black-and-white photographs into graphite pencil drawings.

The picture above isn't a photograph. It's a pencil drawing.

It's the work of Shania McDonagh, a 16-year-old Irish high school student. Shania has won the top prize in the Texaco Children's Art Competition every year since she was 12!

Of course, the drawing is...well, still sort of a photograph. Shania worked from a photograph of Coleman Coyne by James Fennell. (More at The Irish Times.) Without being judgmental, I have to add that this makes me think of another high school friend I haven't kept up with well, Carolyn Maples, whose artistically gifted young school-age daughter has a rule for herself: "Never go from flat." That is, make the conversion from three dimensions to two yourself, and don't let the camera do it for you. That resonates for me, because it was where I fell down as a young artist. I couldn't make the transition from "going from flat" to going from life. Well, I could, but it was arduous and time-consuming, and simply making a photograph that was intended to stay a photograph seemed both better and infinitiely easier.

I did much prefer monochrome media to color media as an artist, however. I liked pen and ink, old master drawings, and of course, apropos the above, pencil drawings.

Of course I'm sure there are many examples of artists who successfully "go from flat." Starting with the aforementioned Chuck Close.

Mike
(Thanks to Colossal via Jeffrey Goggin)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

John Camp: "Your friend Jeff Coryell's work is not trompe l'oeil, it's simply realistic. A trompe l'oeil is meant to literally fool the eye, and nobody would look at a framed piece of your friend's art and think that the wall was full of rocks.

"If you look at the work of a real trompe l'oeil painting like those of John F. Peto, you will see that many of his paintings represent something like a bulletin board with little scraps of paper and notes and even money thumbtacked to it, so that at a glance, it really does look like a bulletin board, rather than a painting—it fools the eye.

"As for the hyper-realistic drawings made from photos, they are photos—they're just printed using a different method: a pencil. This is a craft form, not an art form (any art was done by the camera operator.) It's difficult and meticulous and time-consuming, but so is typing up legal documents, and few people would consider the typing of legal documents to be an art form."

Kevin Purcell: "Tromp Loy" should be good enough for Waukesha (which I can't pronounce)."

Mike replies: And who could blame you.

Jason: "I've noticed that people seem to be impressed by drawings or paintings that look like photos and photos that look like drawings or paintings."

Comments

[Speed]

A still life (plural still lifes) ...
Wikipedia

[David Bennett]

There are many great painters who went from flat for years. Every artist who worked in his (probably only his as opposed to his/her) master's studio copying the master's work did that.

Having said that, they were copying the technique of how to apply paint for effect rather than understanding how to translate from 3D to 2D. But it's a skill that is part of painting.

And while I am commenting, I think that one of the outstanding qualities of Cartier-Bresson was his ability to translate scenes to something that worked in 2D.

[Alex Nichols]

The trouble I have with most photorealist painting and drawing is that it usually remains a strictly technical exercise; the main difference between showing the source material versus the painting/drawing is the added "Look what I can do!"

See:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/05/no-one-cares-how-hard-you-worked.html

And:

http://sonyclassics.com/timsvermeer/

Technical exercises can be useful, and sometimes impressive, of course, but if there wasn't any actual decision making involved in making the thing (i.e. once the source material was selected, everything proceeds fairly robotically), it's hard for me to care.

Chuck Close stands out because there is a conceptual angle to what he is doing (I do sometimes enjoy conceptual art), and he has mixed things up over the years as far as his approach goes (although it is getting bit dry at this point). Trompe l'oeil doesn't really suffer these kinds of problems in my book, because the artist does typically set up the scene, doesn't necessarily work from a photograph, and isn't necessarily trying to achieve "photo"-realism; historically, the genre tries to achieve "real"-realism.

[Lawyerboy]

Still lives is the historical winner, although still lifes is on the increase. I'd go with still lives, as 'lifes' sounds wrong to me.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Yes, photorealistic drafting and painting has been around a long time...probably nearly as long as "photo-" . For me this work is always an analogous experience to watching a female impersonator perform (not that that's a usual experience for me). No matter how really good (s)he is I just can't escape the underlying truth...
The problem is that this style generally brings nothing fresh to the table. It's like scrawling the Bill of Rights in urine on a clean sidewalk. The feat is the point.

There was a fellow who used to frequently show up at local street art fairs in Chicago with the same "almost finished" photorealistic pencil rendering of the Tribune Tower. Each year it would be ever-so-slightly more finished, and slightly more grimy. It became an ever-duller spectacle. One year it finally sported a price of $10,000. Perhaps he sold it because I've not seen him for quite a few years!

The 2008 film Waiting for Hockney portrays a young fellow who had been working on a single photorealistic portrait of Marilyn Monroe (from an iconic Avedon tweener-moment portrait) for years. He's also become obsessed with the artist David Hockney. It's his dream to meet Hockney and get his guidance on becoming rich and famous in the art world through this portrait. It's painful to watch.

[Frank]

For trompe l’œil, just say “tromp loy.”

[Ben Rosengart]

"Tromp loy" will get you pretty close.

[Dave Sculthorpe]

"Of course I'm sure there are many examples of artists who successfully "go from flat."

How about Canaletto, who reputedly used a camera obscura image to work from? Or Vermeer, who may have used the same technique. I guess you could call them successful.

Dave

[Jim Bullard]

RE: The plural of 'still life'. YOu use the plural of the meduim, i.e. still life photographs or still life paintings. It is the object portraying a still life that is plural. The subject of each photo or painting is singular. I hope that helps. :-)

[Winsor]

Trohmp-loy.

I think there is no plural for "still life" as it seems to be an adjectival phrase with the words "arrangement", "painting" or "photo" implied. The implied word gets resurrected for a plural.

[Bil Mitchell]

Oh Gawd -- that HDR look has gone from Photography to Drawing.

[Tom]

Tromp loy;)

[Geoff Wittig]

Painting from life (i.e., standing in front of the subject brush in hand) ideally presents an unmediated reflection of the painter's perceptual biases, his/her way of seeing the world. That's actually one of the great strengths of painting; it permits the viewer to see at least a little slice of the world the way another person does.
Painting from a photograph interposes another layer of visual bias between painter and viewer. The perceptual conventions of photographs that we accept without much thought (fixed depth of field, relative global sharpness, limited dynamic range, optic distortion etc.) greatly simplify the visual problem of a painting, and it's pretty straightforward (if a bit tedious) to duplicate a photo. But the result tends to lack something.

[Bron]

What John Camp said! The problem with flat to flat is understanding what the camera and lens distorts; photography has been a great boon as a resource for draughtsmen. I do think the photo should be ones own, though. Silly me.

[hugh crawford]

Robert Longo's current show at Metro Pictures http://metropictures.com/exhibitions/2014-04-10_robert-longo/
Is an amazing example of Trompe-l'œil drawing. A life size charcoal drawing of Jackson Pollock's Autum Rhythm and one of Ad Reinhardt's black paintings that I forget the name of may not sound so impressive , and don't look like much on the web, but seen in person, they are simply mind blowing, especially if you are familiar with the originals and how process oriented they are. Charcoal is not remotely the right tool for the job of doin paint drips or many shades of off black.

The show is conveniently located a few doors away from the Bruce Silverstein gallery http://www.brucesilverstein.com Where a show pairing August Sander with Bernd and Hilla Becher is hanging.
It's an obvious pairing , New Topographics meet Old Demographics, and I wasn't expecting much , but since I was walking by I took a look.

The Becher prints look about the way they always do, lush, particularly in contrast to the subject matter. The big surprise is how good the Sander prints look. It turns out that they are printed by his grandson who's darkroom chops eclipse those of his grandfather. Sort of a Neil Selkirk vs Diane Arbus thing perhaps , but the prints are beautiful in ways that I don't associate with August Sander and are much more readable.

Mike, is this artistic reinterpretation week at top?

[Mattias]

A question to John Camp: I understand the reason for labelling it a craft form but couldn't the result still be considered art if you take into account the choice of image that the artist/craftsperson chooses to recreate? My point being that the art lies as much in the artistic choices made and intention behind it. Compare for example with conceptual art which is all about the idea.

[Colin Work]

This is a craft form, not an art form (any art was done by the camera operator.)

Hmm - I think the same could be said about the use of any medium if the sole goal is to simply reproduce the subject - indeed, an enormous percentage of photographs are craft.

Now I've not seen the originals of image in question, but I have seen other examples, and in the best cases while there is a close similarity, in fact the images are quite different - a culmination of tiny details ... less emphasis here, a stronger line there ... can transform the feel for the image.

At it's best, hyper-realism (whether the subject be a photo or live subject) is an interpretation, and isn't that where the art lies?

[Marc]

John Camp proposed such a narrow definition of art it would exclude half of it. Printing is a mechanical process done to produce several copies of the same original. Anything done with a pencil by hand is not printing. If you use logic of the classical, accepted sort, unquestionable reasoning and words with their meaning intact, there's no way you can say that a drawing of a photo is a printing, however realistic it is. Much less that it is not art. According to Merriam Webster (the authority I have at hand, I'm sure others would say the same) art is a) something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings, and/or b) works created by artists : paintings, sculptures, etc., that are created to be beautiful or to express important ideas or feelings. The second meaning is now the one generally accepted, and includes all sorts of appropiations and reproductions: from Picasso, Picabia, Duchamp, etc. to Richard Prince, Sherry Levine or Shania Mc Donagh.

[Jeff Hartge]

A good example of trompe l'oeil drawing:
http://www.jdhillberry.com/tromp_thumbpage.htm

I agree with John Camp about "hyper-realistic".

[dale moreau]

A couple decades ago Portland Maine had a rather prolific Trompe L'oeil painter.

unfortunately this link provided additional samples NOT in Portland they are fine examples of the craft.
https://www.google.com/search?q=portland+maine+trompe+l%27oeil&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&imgil=Akkzco7kdhnIxM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQr9_F_mT4eMuYQr3UuQ5zhCOC0dKSipP4ParyDyhr2DAYvqmxZ%253B700%253B467%253B4Grk6YbPnXUeOM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.portlandground.com%25252Farchives%25252F2006%25252F04%25252Fportland_trompe_loiel_win_1.php&source=iu&usg=__yQa-9LSeG8dWbLU22CmYMx8aEUU%3D&sa=X&ei=5PlsU9HWA_HmsAST9ILwCg&ved=0CCoQ9QEwAA#facrc=_&imgrc=Akkzco7kdhnIxM%253A%3B4Grk6YbPnXUeOM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.portlandground.com%252Fdowntown%252F2006-03-19PortlandMural29.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.portlandground.com%252Farchives%252F2006%252F04%252Fportland_trompe_loiel_win_1.php%3B700%3B467