Does anyone else have an aversion to realism?

I'm impressed by it, but I don't prefer it. I think I always start out going for realism and then technique ends up morphing into something different, something I enjoy more. It happened here when I started Drawception. At first I went for realism and then I got hooked on scribbling everything frenetically and now my stuff get's less and less realistic.

What always impresses me is linework. Probably because I suck at it so much. Good clean linework that shows depth and contour really gets me off.

I will say this though, my portfolio always has one or two realistic pieces in it. Everyone assumes you don't do realism because you can't.

ATM, although I am not the best artist I am reaching for realism because I feel like in order to abstract reality you must first understand it. After all, the most influential artists to ever fuck with perception and depiction started as painters trained in classical realism (yay for smart-sounding yet made-up art words ^^, but you get my point.) I think, for me, it boils down to the fact I am not at a point where I can render things with enough skill to be like "Bitch, i got this" and because of that I don;t feel comfortable going buck-wild cerebral with it.

It's possible to have a realistic style which is also impressionist/expressionist. In fact, my favourite artist, Lucian Freud, combined technical mastery with the most incredible ability to depict what's beneath the flesh in his subjects. I've only ever seen one of his paintings close-up rather than in reproduction, and I spent something like an hour going over it inch by inch because the density of emotional meaning that he packed into his work is so absorbing.

I think for me, the aversion to realism is at least partly philosophical. Classical realism, as you put it, is about the myth that there is an "objective reality," a way of seeing the world which is completely neutral and unbiased. It's a kind of Procrustean bed for outlying thought, a normalization of commonly-accepted biases and prejudice. An artist like Lucian Freud was capable of both showing you the commonly-accepted gestalt of what he's depicting, but also showing you what he really sees.

https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=850&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=lucian+freud+paintings&oq=lucian+freud+paintings&aq=f&aqi=g5g-S5&aql=&gs_l=img.3..0l5j0i24l5.13191.15018.0.15136.10.6.0.4.4.0.120.584.5j1.6.0...0.0.IQFtQqsZYto

As anyone who has ever seen my drawception "portfolio" can attest i am not a trained artist. et donc pour tenir à la hauteur de cette dialogue soutenue, j'ai fait des recherches images sur la terme ce dont je n'étais pas 100% sur, (classical realism, par exemple)

I do enjoy the prettiness of classical realism, although it does make me think of it as like the photoshopping of the day. I quite enjoy the sublime. (In paintings is ok, pretty even, in my magazines, sickening) however i love trompe l'oeil (even the kind where it's not a skewed angle, but also just straight on) That being said I do adore the impressionists, and the dadaists. but i do love the romantics as well. and of course whatever modern art is. however for drawception, i am just happy when i have managed to draw something well enough that the next person recognizes it. much less draw it well enough and try to make it have style. perhaps this is why i never get the upvotes. it is interesting however, that the grand majority of styles represented on drawception (with the enormous exception of manga/animé inspirations) are western centric. ps trogo, keep using the art jargon, it's sexy. and smash, such an intelligent thread discussion. hope i haven't dumbed it down too much.

I do like me some realism, but my favourite pieces are of artists who are able to take that realistic human being and shove it in a fantasy piece. Linda Bergkvist and Marta Dahlig comes to mind. That being said, I do enjoy pieces that have distinct styles, doesn't have to be realistic. As long as it's obvious the artist has put on much time and love into the piece, it's equally as visually striking for me.

I'm put in mind of a painting I once saw at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa. From a distance, it appears to be simply a large red canvas. As one approaches, it looms larger and larger, filling an entire wall. The canvas is massive, so large that, once approached, it fills the entire field of view. Up close, it's possible to see that this gargantuan canvas is made up of millions upon millions of extremely tiny red brushstrokes, all of an identical red... except for one miniscule area of one corner of the canvas, where there is a single tiny patch which is slightly off-red. The overall feeling one gets is of smothering claustrophobia, really quite emotionally moving.

The canvas was painted by an artist in the Soviet Union, under Stalin. The way the artist was able to transmit his emotional state so clearly while at the same time making it completely invisible to the State censors is remarkable. And yet, while I stood there, I heard more than one person scoff and sneer, remarking on "modern art" and how it takes no talent to create it.

I saw a piece like that once that really blew me away. It was a gigantic grey canvas with white strokes that were varying in opacity. From a distance it was just white scribbles on a grey canvas. When you walked up to it though it immediately reminded you of being a child and walking up to the chalkboard in school. It was so enormous that it made you feel 4 feet tall again. It was one of the stranger things I've ever experienced.

I guess a lot of people wouldn't get it now because nobody uses chalk boards anymore, shame.

Ever since I saw it I've had this dream of building a house at 2x scale so you could walk through a house and feel like you were 6 years old again. Not be able to see the top of the kitchen counters, heh. If I ever win the lottery I'm building it.

Oddly, with 3D graphics I prefer realism for the background and cartoony and/or stylized for the characters. Uncanny valley is never going to be something we can cross, and I don't see the point in making something uber-realistic when we can just go out and film it and get an actual realistic portrayal.

With artwork, I love almost everything. I love realism with paintings but don't think I can achieve it myself just yet. I also love impressionism but Drawception is not the best vehicle for my preferred method of doing that. Too many mouse moves freaks it out and makes it very liable to crash. My browser actually did crash while I was working on the background, the one I posted was actually a screenshot I took just in case it crashed. I didn't update it frequently enough, unfortunately.

@schwnz Are you familiar with Alice in Wonderland Syndrome? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_Syndrome People affected often perceive themselves as being much larger or much smaller than they really are. Just think, all you need to realize your dream is brain damage and/or migraines!