Famous painters copied photographs

[FlipMcgee]

http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/2006/11/famous-painters-copied-photopraphs_06.html

Discuss :traced:

[Maxine Schacker]

The point is that they didn't "copy" the photographs. They couldn't have done the work they did simply by "copying." They "jumped" from the photos and knew what to exaggerate, what to change and so on.

[Darklord101]

To me they seem like reference images, much like many artists today use.

[HunterKiller_]

Most of those have gone from B&W to colour.
I don't see anything wrong with it.

[seba_boi]

Interesting, yet not that big of a deal... I'd like to get some of those Toulouse Lautrec posters though...

[Main Loop]

nothing new.. most books with 19th century painters show reference photos.. compare it to painters today, it almost seems like the less photo ref there is available, the better the overall quality of art there is

[Seedling]

This is nothing unexpected. That period of time was rife with new inventions, and some of the artists used those inventions fully, including photography, the paint tube, and new pigments.

[mwillustration]

just make sure you take the photos yourself or if you use someone else's, change it so it doesn't look exactly like the ref.

thanks for the link!

[MarkHarchar]

So you go outside and have someone sit in front of a tree. While they sit there, you frame up your view and while you are looking at the "image" in front of you, you paint it.

So you go outside and have someone sit in front of tree. While they sit there, you frame up your view, take a picture, go back to your studio and while you are looking at the image in front of you, you paint it.

Where is the major difference here? Unless you are closing your eyes and painting purely from the mind, you are using reference. It still amazes me that this causes so much controversy.

[Automatic Kafka]

This is pretty far from putting a photo in the bottom layer and painting over it in Photoshop, and it isnt really news that they painted from photographs.

The old masters like Van Eyck etc. often used a special setup of a lens/mirror to be able to very precisely trace a scene onto a canvas in their studio. Still, they were highly skilled painters that only used this to speed up production. hey also used a myriad of other tools like gridnets. But as I said, they could still draw like baaad muthas when push came to shove

[Dizon]

This is a good example of a painter who used photo reference in his work. http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2000/Dagnan-Bouveret/dagnan1.asp

Obviously, a technically proficient painter knows how to use it effectively. Nothing like what is shown above.

[grantrl78]

Though all of you seem level headed, many art people are in total freakin denial. Much of the crap propagated around the web makes me angry.
Most of it is like listening to a bunch of well meaning kids try and convince their parents that they still
believe in santa claus. BTW putting a photo in a layer of photoshop and tracing is exactly the same as using a projector and tracing. Period.
And the idea that commercial artists who deal in realism don't use projectors is utter nonsense.
Plus this stuff HAS been going on since the enlightenment with the invention of the camera obscura.
And the ARC know that they are faking the funk.

[Justin.]

Those examples using Lautrec or horrible... It seems like this was taken out of a book- I mean, come on- those dancers, whatever they are called, have pretty much 3 good poses- Standing, Full extended kick, half extended (Femur up, Tibia down). Not to mention the perspective is WAY different, as are alot of the poses.

Again, as was said, nothin new. It's like they are trying to say they cheated- when some are actually a decent bit different from the photos.

[Elwell]

And the ARC know that they are faking the funk.
ARC thinks the funk is a commie pinko conspiracy.

[Simon.Rain]

Elwell - I truly didnt get your post ...

And by the way, thanks for showing me what ARC was... I know, I was living on the moon since the last 4 years so that's my excuse... heheheh

I was seriously looking for an online database for art

[davi]

I dont mind when painters use direct reference for study, but if they are using direct reference in the personal work, that i have issue with, unless espically if the reference wasnt something they took themselves.

[Qitsune]

According to the link, they pretty much took the pics themselves.

[NoSeRider]

Dem Bastards!

And here I am trying to discipline my mind to remember stuff and draw from life.

Artists have a tendency to make you feel they have supernatural talent that just appears out of no where........I feel like somebody just told me Santa Claus does not exist.

Oh wait a minute.....grantrl78 told me that.

[perpetualnoob]

Ooh, I love ARC. Yup, they are a tiny bit militant.

[kingshaj]

im not bothered by this at all.
the impressionists were about exploring light and mood,
none of wich is present in thier soucrce pics.

in most of the examples shown, the artists are using only the most rudimentary info from the photos.

[showdownmetal]

as far as im concerned the great painters and artists from yesteryear were good for one reason, they could take something from life, change it, and make it theirs. every one of those paintings has a likeness to the pictures, but there are quite alot of differences. none of them are exactly the same, some are either missing parts of the picture or have things added.

now if someone could show me grids on the picture and the canvas, then i would say they're all a bunch of traitors and dont belong in this profession... -_-

[otis]

So?
I thought that is why we call them "painters"?

[mitsumori]

I don't see a difference between painting from a photo and painting from a live model in front of you. It's just reference, most artists use them :dur:

[Wasker]

I doubt they used the eye dropped or overpainted the photos when they did their pictures so that's all fine. They probably tookthe photographs themselves or own them in some other way.
All artists use somekind of reference in their life. I'm pretty sure Leonardo would have used photos (models dont sit still) along with models for colors if he could.

[Storyboard Dave]

Okay, so they used reference. Big deal. They still how to draw it and paint it. I always use the analogy of- just because I give you and everyone the same photograph, the same sort of pencil, and the same sort of tracing paper- we're all going to trace it differently. Regardless of how one achieves the end product, good art still requires a discerning eye and a measure of artisitic talent.

Just because my neighbor across the street might have a $8000 computer system doesn't make her a graphic designer. And just because one can afford a swanky high tech camera doesn't make them a world class photographer either.

[barnest]

Regarding grids, at the studio where I'm training for 3 weeks, they have tables off the design of Durer where it quite literally, and simply, fixes a grid in front of your object which you then copy onto your paper.

Now, in all respects, this is inferior-- slower/inefficient, and no room to modify as you like.

But when still learning and training, it makes perfect sense. Only later does it become a handicap. I do buy the ARC's stance that the camera obscura was not adopted; the fact is that it is easy enough to draw directly without a tracing anyway. A few weeks of practice, and you can get the angles for the "box-in," and then later add increasing levels of detail, fairly quickly.


-Bernard

[Five]

Most aritsts painting in a realistic style use some kine of reference, be it a live model or a photograph.
For me the point is to realize this, as at least I, when I was younger, used to assume that they painted it just like that out of their head. It brings them down to a human level. ;-)


A more modern example:

http://maciek.miekinia.com/tapety/fantasy/luis%20royo%20-%20laetitia%20casta%20-%20fallen%20angel%20(1).jpg

[fersteger]

thats cool to see the ref pic like that. I still hold in my heart that some people can do the best most believably realistic art from their heads, which is turning out to be not true, but yeah I use reference all the time.

[Richard Marchand]

Here is a really neat documentary that shows mirrors and projections going back to 1420...

part 1
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=84845549421941938

part 2 (takes a couple minutes until it actualy kicks into part 2)
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=3419713965280578901

[Jason Manley]

this is called copyright violation.



j


Most aritsts painting in a realistic style use some kine of reference, be it a live model or a photograph.
For me the point is to realize this, as at least I, when I was younger, used to assume that they painted it just like that out of their head. It brings them down to a human level. ;-)


A more modern example:

http://maciek.miekinia.com/tapety/fantasy/luis%20royo%20-%20laetitia%20casta%20-%20fallen%20angel%20(1).jpg

[masque]

this is called copyright violation.
unless the usage was licensed in some fashion.

[Richard Marchand]

this is called copyright violation.



j


Do you mean posting it on the forum without permission?

I believe he does take his own photos... here is one he did of Steve and Liv Tyler...

http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=Grey%20Over%20A%20Greyer%20Grey&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

[ArtEdGradStudent]

One thing that needs to be said is that the word "copy" has a negative connotation, but shouldn't necessarily. I see it as another word for "study". You're studying the image to learn from it. The work you do isn't exactly yours, nor should you call it yours, but what you learn is great! Then take that and use it however you may to increase the skill/etc in your work. Like Seedling's first Concept Art Exercise.

Also, with all the collage work people are doing from stock photos, at some point you kind of have to set the drawing skill aside and ask the separate question, how does it stand as a work of art? I've seen a couple of these work that I found good enough to appreciate despite the fact they're digital collages.

[Nepheris]

When I need a reference pic of a pose, haven't got any of that particular pose and don't feel like looking up in a mirror every 10 seconds, I just take a small pic with my webcam of myself in the pose I want, so I have something I can check while drawing for reference. (Not tracing ofcourse! Tracing baaad!)

I don't see the difference in doing this and what those old masters did. /Shrug.