WHEN I WAS IN COLLEGE in the early 1970s, getting a degree in painting, “photorealism” was afoot in the California art scene. This was alongside other kinds of “new realisms.” I saw some of the amazing photorealist works at art exhibits. And I was amazed at the verisimilitude of the drawing and painting.
For some reason, I never dared to ask, “Did you actually draw that? Or did you project a photo image on your canvas?” It seemed like a rude query.
Years later my interest was once again piqued at an annual meeting of the College Art Association. A session was held on the California realists. All through the talks no one mentioned the procedures of these storied painters, who often painted ordinary everyday scenes, such as cars on streets or a neighborhood cluster.
At the end I had marshaled the gumption to approach one of the presenters. I asked, “Did the photorealists use projectors to draw, and even to paint?” The answer was a reluctant yes. Indeed, it was routine to project, trace, and color in a painting. The skill was in the subtle painting and, of course, the philosophical idea that you can, by projection, turn a small color photo or slide into a giant work of fine art on canvas.
Painters still debate how much technology is appropriate in their craft. I’ve been at more than one art session with painters in the audience—typically plein air diehards—who huffed or guffawed to see a painter use a squeegee or straightedge to get sharp lines, or to use a reference photo to cobble together a composition.
Such contretemps remind us of the recent argument that Vermeer, the beloved Dutch painter, used a camera obscura to trace his subject—projected by a pinhole and mirror—on to the panel to draw it before he painted. The British modernist painter David Hockney took the case public with a splash, including scientific evidence, replicated experiments, and an entire book and film on the topic.
Traditionalists have argued in return that the Vermeer theory is absurd, and sheer speculation. Vermeer did not need an overhead projector, so to speak, to execute accurate drawings. The evidence? Today, many art students come out of training with the ability to draw in photographic quality, so why couldn’t Vermeer do it also?
Hockney, to soften the debate, said even if Vermeer did use a camera obscura, he still had to apply the paint and make it look good. In the same territory, it became more widely known that Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, the French Neoclassical artist of the Napoleonic period, also used the camera obscure for pencil drawings.
In this digital age, when even fine painters are instead learning to put down brush strokes of color on iPads, the stigma of using replicating technology to make “fine art” has disappeared. Different strokes for different folks. Rightfully, a whole set of other painters value the skill and challenge of drawing directly from life, painting from life, and doing it all at once, which the Italians called alla prima.
The public will like what it likes, despite such methodological disputes among painters. Many watercolor societies have the rule that you can only use transparent watercolor to be considered acceptable. The gatekeepers of plein air painting can be equally strict on acceptable methods.
One naturally wonders, however, what painters secretly do in pursuit of a good painting, regardless of the rules or stigmas. Maybe Vermeer did use an overhead projector, as demoralizing as that may seem to us today. Edgar Degas and John Singer Sargent certainly used a straightedge, and they didn’t even bother to paint over the pencil lines to hide the fact.