In-Depth Study On Photorealism.

Photorealism is an art movement based on the study of a photograph and then production, from this, of a painting which is so realistic that it resembles a photograph. As a rule, paintings done in the United States in the late 1960s or early 1970s in this style are generally called original photorealism.
Photorealism evolved from Pop Art, mainly in America. The Photorealists opposed the increasingly popular Minimalist and Abstract Impressionist art movements, also evolving at the time. The general idea was to counter the rise of the sleek lines and abstraction of the movements currently in favour.
The whole point of photorealist painting was to have a photograph. The subjects must be still and unchanging; the idea behind it was a capturing of the current space in time. The photograph was still on the rise in art then, the Polaroid was coming into vogue, and photography had not yet become an accepted art form. The photorealist artist would take a still photograph and then develop the photo in order to transfer it by hand onto a canvas, and paint it. Nowadays we can print straight on to canvas, and this was the very thing the photorealists were rebelling against; the influx of technology into art, which is a paradox, as without technology, their art form would never have existed. The whole style is precise and intense, with natural lines and colours. Technical mastery was key; without a keen grasp of mark-making techniques, the artist would fail in his or her attempts to produce photorealist work.
The term photorealist came from Louis Meisel, who developed a five-point definition of a photorealist artist, seen below:
1. The Photo-Realist uses the camera and photograph to gather information.
2. The Photo-Realist uses a mechanical or semimechanical means to transfer the information to the canvas.
3. The Photo-Realist must have the technical ability to make the finished work appear photographic.
4. The artist must have exhibited work as a Photo-Realist by 1972 to be considered one of the central Photo-Realists.
5. The artist must have devoted at least five years to the development and exhibition of Photo-Realist work.
An example of original photorealist, American painters would be: Chuck Close, Ralph Goings, Charles Bell, Audrey Flack, Tom Blackwell, and Glenray Tutor, to name a few. The original movement was fairly small and captained mostly by artists who have now moved on to other things; Flack, for instance, moved into sculpture.
Photorealism is no longer merely an American movement. Beginning with Swiss artist Franz Gertsch in the 1980's, photorealism spread across Europe. However, it will still always be associated with America, and indeed most photorealist paintings today protray vintage American scenes.