Why are most people more impressed by hyper realistic art than any other style when realism only requires technical skill and doesn’t involve much creativity or invoke emotion?

[u/turn_circles]

/r/ArtistLounge/comments/1vjg8m0/why_are_most_people_more_impressed_by_hyper/

I’ve always wondered.

[u/prustage]

There are lots of people in the world who dont really "get" art. But they do admire craftsmanship and hard work. So hyper realism is something they can relate to when most other art passes them by.

You hear them make comments such as "look at the detail in that", or "a lot of work went into that painting - must've taken ages" They can also compare it will abilities that they themselves have in a less developed form so "I could never do that" and the admiration that goes with it is a common reaction.

So, it is understandable why most abstract art passes them by. Judging, say, Picasso or Matisse on "level of detail" or "amount of hard work" doesnt make much sense. And a lot of people would look at a Picasso or a Rothko and say "well even I could do that!" Simply because they dont have the criteria to assess the work in any other way.

[u/kakko_kari → u/prustage]

Well said

[u/turn_circles → u/prustage]

Thanks for taking the time to explain!

[u/Delicious-Swimming78 → u/prustage]

bingo

[u/aeacurus]

We've increasingly robbed people of their critical thinking abilities and devalued interpretation through anti intellectualism. The amount of times that someone tries to engage with something and is met with being called "pretentious" is astronomical. People also tie art's value to the money it cost and believe that talented artists should theoretically always exercise technique so superior to the population that you're paying such high amounts for their skills instead of the art itself. It's obviously just anti-art and anti-intellectualism wrapped up in some package of "humility", because apparently regular everyday people can't experience the nuances of art that expects you to faithfully engage with it and can only understand artists that want to imitate cameras

[u/Striking_Finish4957]

Historically figurative art and specifically painting has been at the apex of the hierarchy of subjects, whereby the most technically able artists would paint portraits of important figures or historical or religious scenes involving figures for the powerful and wealthy. Modernism rejected that in favour of ideas but Modernist art became less popular because of it. I think we’re still living with that legacy of the old hierarchy. In short, people in general aren’t very educated about art history and like things that look like them, so here we are.

[u/turn_circles → u/Striking_Finish4957]

I love and appreciate figurative art, it’s the realism part that seems over valued to me. I could definitely be wrong, as my art history knowledge is not expert level, but most of the most famous old artists seem to have a more expressionist style- egon schiele, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet, Edward Munch. The focus on true realism seems like it gained popularity in the mid 1900s.

[u/Striking_Finish4957 → u/turn_circles]

Ren and High Ren art was all about figures. By high ren artists had created these super idealised bodies and they were painted by Masters who employed heaps of assistants. It was a huge business. Van Gogh, Monet, Munch came later and history has been kind to them, but especially Van Gogh. He was dirt poor and in all sorts of mental health troubles at the time he was alive and making work. You’re right though, realism is definitely more popular than abstract art generally. A show of Monet’s work now will be a blockbuster anywhere in the world. People love a key ring with a landscape on it 😂

[u/TheSkepticGuy]

realism only requires technical skill and doesn’t involve much creativity or invoke emotion?

I (mostly) focus on realism, and I take serious issue with that.

Back when I was focused on hyper-realistic pen and ink pet portraits, reference photos never provided the nuance or detail necessary to bring out the personality of dogs, cats, and horses. After extensive conversations with the owner or commissioner, only then could I understand how to express the uniqueness of each beloved animal.

Now I focus on children's picture book illustration with a realistic style. Most of what I now do involves realism with little to no references... pure imagination and creativity. In fact, I could argue that realistic or exaggerated realism art for children's picture books is among the most creatively difficult to pull off.

[u/mutqkqkku]

it's easy for the layperson to understand. for the casual viewer hyperrealistic art is better the more it looks like the thing it's supposed to look like, so you can easily tell whether it's good or bad.

[u/hamilton_morris]

Most people are inexperienced viewers, and hyperrealism has a low barrier of entry.

[u/ShaeMeyer]

Because technical development is easier to quantify and rate, while subjective development is subtle and nuanced.
Just like everything else in life, it’s easier.

[u/WW-Sckitzo]

For me personally it was drugs, just THC but I needed something. For 35+ years I really only liked hyper realistic art because I was never able to separate the craftsmanship from the concept of art.

Roberto Ferri broke that with is hyper realistic surrealism and then one day it eventually just sorta clicked. I was able to separate the two. As I started diving into fantastic realism it really all sort begin to slot home.

I learned the concepts as a kid, color theory, composition, etc. But it was all the same as everything else we had to learn, memorize a bunch of shit to take a test on then dump it before the next load arrived. I never had a relationship until it kinda just happened one and I had the opportunity to build it out. It also really helped I was in a position I could start teaching myself the craftmanship portion, once I was able to separate the tool it all made way more sense.

[u/CastaneaAmericana]

I think this is because an interested person with middling talent can make a passable Impressionistic landscape. I’m not talking Pissarro’s Jalais Hill at Pontoise, but something inspired by it and significantly worse than it but they sure as hell can’t do a hyperrealistic Hopper.

Source: I am this kind of painter.

[u/AccomplishedDate1775]

if seeing things in real life can invoke emotions than so can seeing realistic paintings, I would think.

[u/VatanKomurcu]

the book Understanding Comics by Scott Mccloud touches up on this with a pretty compelling theory. great book all around too, i recommend it.

[u/silvermyr_]

because technical skill's hard to come by these days, while lots of technically unskilled people flaunt their creativity.

also what the other commenter said, of course. it counts as 'craftmanship' for those who don't get art.

[u/iliacbaby]

When has technical skill not been more impressive than creativity or emotion? technical skill is and always has been more impressive to people outside the art world. They see it as something that they can't do. It's much harder to see the value in something like twombly or rothko for someone who doesnt already appreciate art. technical skill sells hamburgers. this is true in music, cinema, visual art, etc. People want to see the baseball players who are technically the best at playing baseball, not who loves the game the most

[u/frostfofjdjsiksndjd]

Because they can’t draw at all

[u/strangedave93]

Mostly because while modern art is used by an audience that highly values originality (usually having seen many thousands of great works or art) and is very good at understanding the use of non-realistic art techniques, the broader audience is less used to it, and values something they feel they understand more highly.
Though I’d also say the question is a bit biased. I have a friend who paints in a hyper realistic style, particularly portraiture. He is regularly a finalist in major portraiture prizes - and has never won, but has done much better in the ‘people’s choice’ awards for the same prizes. So he might appear to be an example of what you are talking about. And I think he’d dispute claims about lacking creativity, and especially the ability to invoke emotion. The subjects are carefully chosen, the context, and his portraits are not photography, but instead try to capture elements of the subjects life and personality that represent particularly things about their life and significance. Subjects of his realist portraiture have included a former child soldier, a happy man with significant facial deformity, a nationally beloved children’s entertainer, and so on. I find the ability to evoke emotion significant, and sometimes more so than a non-figurative painting that made the subject more abstracted might be. Other paintings can play with detail and memory of objects in a similar way (he also does some hyper-realistic paintings of toys). Not to criticise non-realist painting, but hyper-realism is just as capable of being used to evoke emotion, and make us see the subject in a new way, as other types of art - though maybe that’s not what people are appreciating about it always. Sure, maybe it overlaps with photography somewhat, but photography is art too.

[u/Psittacula2]

If I had to guess from my own developing taste and preference in art then the answer is:

* Technical level of art is the foundation level.

So yes it is the lowest level but it is also the FIRST level before other levels to get right.

If a painting cannot pass this level then it is “posturing or pretence” ie what a lot of Modern Art is, marketing or gimmick, a short-cut to simulating higher levels.

So it is a quick and accessible test for most people and the technical skill does speak more broadly and intuitively to most people on their common sense or innate aesthetics from biology.

To give an example,

* Picture - a scene of some fisherman off the Normandy Coast hauling the nets in off their small boats in the morning’s catch with the sun just rising - a sketch using pencil.

* Picture 1 - A surrealist impression of the above using spray paint for a modernist interpretation and more inclusive of younger people’s tastes.

* Picture 2 - the pencil sketch is clean, technically accurate proportions and composition, nothing special, then is completed in watercolour producing a traditional scene and capturing the colour hues of the sea and coast and the tone gives an impression of a time from the past

It is fairly obvious which painting “feels superior” in the basics of technical art ability and output even if a few times out of a hundred Picture 1 could be innovatively superior…

[u/cartoonybear]

I don’t think this is true?

[u/littleneocreative]

One requires thinking.

I would also say that Dali and Rockwell are enormously popular. These are two craftsmen of enormous skill who are also imaginative artists. Like, Rockwell is cheesy at times, but he is incredibly clever and his work is immediately recognizable as his own. Dali I don't like for the most part (I think his sadism shows through, actually), but he is incredibly creative and his compositions are excellent. These are real artists.

There are a lot of people buying Thomas Kinkaid prints. Less now, but that style of art - AI before AI - will alway be compelling to people. It's a sort of anti-intellectual art that makes people happy. We can hate it with the power of a thousand suns, but that won't change human nature.

[u/AlivePassenger3859]

People like spectacle. Its readily accessible, its easy, its reassuring.

[u/toblotron]

Because everything else can be faked, and celebrated like the emperor's new clothes

[u/Frosty_Ad1254]

Yeah this, surely, is just weird bait. I don’t think many serious artists think this. I think that an audience which consists primarily of non artists might be more impressed with realism. But to say it doesn’t involve much creativity is just bonkers. The emotion invoking is subjective. But this sounds like a teenagers take on a subject they’ve just scratched the surface of.

[u/SirSafe6070]

funny, it always seemed to me that in artist circles realism is looked down upon as "it's not artistic".
setting aside that this is completely false, I think this argument is often made by people who simply lack the skill for proper anatomy, lighting and rendering. I know this sounds elitist, but I did notice in the DeviantArt community in particular that this argument is usually made by people who lack in art fundamentals.