Emotional and subjective nuances are added to the reproduction of objects
The Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) defines hyperrealism as enhanced or excessively detailed realism . The term is used to refer to a pictorial and sculptural style that resembles photography .
An explicit representation of reality
Emerging in the late 1960s on the European continent and in the United States, hyperrealism has precisionism and pop art as precursor movements. It is an evolution or variant of photorealism , the genre based on the development of paintings from photos.
While photorealism aimed to achieve an imitation of photographs, leaving aside emotions and other symbolic issues, hyperrealism adds complexity to its representation, even trying to produce a sensation of reality that does not appear in the photograph.
It can be said that hyperrealism radically pursues objectivity , but it is also an explicit representation of what is real . The artist must master the technique perfectly to capture the image accurately.
The representation created by hyperrealism, in short, is meticulous and exact. In addition to technical mastery, the painter or sculptor must have significant visual acuity. There is a kind of appropriation of the visible in the hyperrealist work. Although always, in turn, it is a representation produced by the person.
Exponents of hyperrealism
The Spanish Antonio López , the Chilean Claudio Bravo , the American Richard Estes , the Argentine Enrique Sobisch and the Italian Roberto Bernardi are some of the main exponents of hyperrealism. His works are admired by numerous critics and art lovers in general.
The work of the aforementioned Estes, in addition to Chuck Close , Audrey Flack and Denis Peterson , for example, was described by Graham Thompson as creating "paintings that look like photographs." Of course, as noted above, we should not confuse hyperrealism with photorealism: this comparison is unfavorable because it prevents us from seeing the layer that it adds to the mere faithful reproduction of material objects.
Creation process
Since the differences between hyperrealism and photorealism are not apparent to any observer, it is necessary to accentuate them by taking a look at the creation process of each type of work. Let's start with photorealism, which is the easiest to understand: basically, it is a very faithful reproduction of an image, which pursues imitation to the point that the source and the work are confused. This applies to today in the film and video game industries, through the use of three-dimensional graphics.
Hyperrealism begins in the same way: it takes a photographic image as its source. But the similarities end here, since it does not pursue the same objective, but rather uses it as a reference . On top of the reproduction, an artist belonging to this style usually adds his own content, emotions and messages that arise from his own point of view and that cannot be found in the reference material.
Hyperrealism plays especially with textures and lighting
Of course, we could also say that these nuances are present in the image used as a reference, since its subjects and objects have emotions, a historical and political context , etc., and that they cannot be separated from these features; Clarification is necessary, therefore, because photorealism usually discards this background to achieve a more consistent result, as if all the elements had been created by the artist.
To achieve a work that convinces the observer that it is alive, hyperrealism relies on a series of techniques and treatments that subtly manipulate the original image. One of the most important elements is lighting , which alone can completely change the character of a scene. Then the textures and intensity of the shadows come into play.