Free Essay. Comparison Between the Approaches of the Photorealists to That of Pop Artists

The artwork is always guided by a particular goal and so is the work of photorealists and pop artists. Pop artists is an earlier movement in respect to photorealists movement. The two movement were developed to transit from the concepts of idealism and abstract expressionism to concepts of reality and factuality. Although photorealsts have compelling similarities with pop artists, they depicts contrasting differences that distances them from achieving a common goal.

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Both the photorealists and pop artists were guided by the interest to break the conventional ideas of that appropriate subject matter and the mundane scenes of everyday life. Hence, they both focused on objects such as trucks, sources of inspiration, and cars among others. Besides, both artists make use of mechanical and industrial techniques to make the artwork a reality. Use of camera, digital computer images, and photographs is a common technique used by the photo-realists and pop artists. The use of the non-figurative style of painting dominates their works. Painterly style makes the images more abstract and expressive (Nijhuis, Lammeren, and Hoeven, 189). However, both the photrealists and pop artists are not associated with abstract work.

Both the pop artists and the photorealists were not based on the idea of abstract expressionism. While abstract expressionists sought the trauma from the soul, the pop artists sought the traces of trauma in the realms of mediated world characterized by popular imagery, cartoons and advertisement. On the other hand, photorealists expanded with great interests in making art a reality rather than abstraction and idealism. Although the movement mixes the unrealistic elements and realistic elements it is more real than abstract and hence seeks to distance its work from the ideal of abstract expressionism.

However, the approaches used by photorealists and pop artists differ significantly. Photorealist drawings are guided by no set rules, no doctrine, no manifesto set forth and hence no common ideology guiding the artists (Nijhuis, Lammeren, and Hoeven, 189). The artist seeks to replicate the photographs and images already drawn and due to this, their images lack reality. Moreover, photorealism integrates unrealistic elements and realistic elements hence complicating the aspect of realism. Due to this mixing of the two approaches, creates a distance from realism both metaphorically and factually. Although the image represented on the canvas can be recognized, the work is does not involve direct observation but photography hence taking away the realism of the art work. The artist aims at utilizing the visual information that the camera captured to develop illusionistic paintings, drawings or any other artwork. In this regard, the work of the photorealists favors representation rather than an abstraction. Conversely, pop artists are concerned with realism and are characterized by the imagery of consumerism and mass popular culture. The artists tend to mimic and represent the general consumerism pattern exhibited by the mass popular culture. In this regard, it is more real and used as forms of advertisement, comic strips, and consumer product packaging. Hence, pop artists favor abstraction rather than representation.

While pop artists focus on a specific interest, photorealists do not focus on specific interests since they aim to reproduce the photograph with a high degree of sharpness. Usually, photographs have certain degree of blurriness and this makes it hard to focus on specific interest. The blurriness confuses the natural vision of people's eyes such that the replicated effects of photography is evident. In this regard, focusing on a specific viewpoint is problematic to the replicated image and as a result, it contain various viewpoints. Multiple viewpoints give the image an aesthetic appearance and look. The work of pop artists is clear and lack the blurriness found in the photorealists work.

The use of lights yet another approach that both photorealists and pop artists used to perform their arts. The artists were concerned with the interaction of color and light and this made the representation of light a common approach when drawing the artistic work. Photorealists projected images onto a bare canvas and relied on side machines. Using the machine, the photorealists consolidate light and color to form a single element. The representation of light is evident through the steel and chrome surfaces that are highly reflective. The reproduced images captures light perfectly and accurately. On the other hand, pop artists are concerned with the interaction of the light with the object to produce an image that represent the real world rather than what is in a photograph.

The pop artists' movement aims to use the techniques to coalesce the domain of popular culture and high art in a seamless manner. It seeks to attain perfection in representing the mass culture through the visual vocabulary. The end aim of the photo realists' movement is to reproduce and create with accuracy and precision, the photography using the sophisticated machines.

In conclusion, although pop artists and photorealists' have similarities, the differences are more pronounced making each of them a masterpiece. The pop artists' movement draws from the mass culture and popular culture to create imagery, while the photorealists draws from the photography to replicate its content into a bare canvas. The photorealists mixes the unrealistic elements with the realistic elements to make the replicated photograph real, however, rather than making it real it creates a further distance from reality. In contrasts, pop artists seeks to attain reality by perfectly representing the mass culture and popular culture.

Works Cited

Nijhuis, Steffen, Lammeren R. Van, and Frank . Hoeven. Exploring the Visual Landscape: Advances in Physiognomic Landscape Research in the Netherlands. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: IOS Press, 2011, Accessed from books.google.co.ke/books?id=s20ey2Q8QD8C&pg=PA189&dq=photorealists+use+of+visual+images&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj86rvw1vPjAhVHzRoKHWrOCzcQ6AEIODAD#v=onepage&q=photorealism&f=false