And now, introducing…Paintography!
Painting by Karen Sperling from a photo by Michelle Lamberth.
I wrote the first Corel Painter manual in 1991, when the software debuted.
Adobe Photoshop debuted around the same time.
That means, it’s almost 20 years since digital art first became widespread through the use of two popular software programs available on the two most popular computer platforms, Macintosh and Windows.
It also means that we’ve been debating for nearly 20 years what to call this art.
There are purists who insist upon calling it digital art. The problem I have with calling it digital art is that the term has a stigma attached to it. Digital art is somehow perceived as not being as valuable or as proper as “real art,” if real art is that which is created with traditional materials, mainly because theoretically, infinite numbers of computer printouts can be made from the digital file vs. “real” art that’s only one of a kind.
The fallacy in this logic is two fold. First, “real” artists create multiple copies of the same artwork and sell it, from Monet and his haystacks to Andy Warhol. Sure, it can be said that even if someone oil paints the same subject on two different canvases they won’t be identical. But that leads to the second fallacy, namely, that two art printouts are identical. They’re not. The colors, the ink levels, the kind of paper or canvas, will be different each time.
Instead of comparing computer prints to “real” paintings, they should be compared to photos. An Ansel Adams photo is valuable, and the quality of the print is considered in determining the value. One doesn’t say, it’s not valuable, it’s just a print from a negative. It’s valuable because it’s an Ansel Adams photograph.
I’ve learned two very important factors about art in the 20 years that I’ve been writing about and teaching Painter.
The first factor is, it’s the same hand movement back and forth, whether you’re painting with a Wacom stylus and the computer or a paint brush or drawing with a pencil.
And the second, more important factor is, art is about creativity and thought as much as, if not more than, it is about physical dexterity with a mark-making implement.
It’s the thought that goes into the ideas of the art that makes it art.
That means that it doesn’t matter if art was created on the computer, it’s art because it represents the thought, ideas and expression of the artist.
David Hockney has embraced computer tools, it’s time everyone else does.
Regardless, I have never seen myself as a warrior fighting the good digital art battle. I leave that to other people.
I’m not alone. Go to galleries and museums nowadays and you’ll see art that has been affected at one stage or another by computer software, yet there’s nothing in the accompanying identifying plaque about computers. That’s because it doesn’t matter how the art is created, it’s still art. And maybe it’s also because of the stigma attached to mentioning the computer.
I liked how Jim Dine seems to have handled it. I went to an exhibit of his art at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine here in California. One of the images looked like a digital print of a photo of an office with a bird painted in it. The accompanying descriptive plaque listed the media as paint and printer’s ink.
Digital art purists view digital art as an art movement similar to Impressionism and Pop Art. I don’t see it that way. I see digital art as another medium alongside oils, watercolors and pastels.
I’m thinking about all this of late because I have made the decision to get into painting portraits full steam ahead. Till now, I’ve been content to just teach others how to do it, which probably had more to do with my confidence levels-those who can, do; those who can’t, teach, as the saying goes.
And I’m just not comfortable with this whole name game. I want to just call my portrait art paintings, but that’s not completely accurate, and besides, I will be offering prints on canvas and also oils on canvas. I can’t call them digital prints or digital portraits because there’s still a stigma attached to those terms.
So I thought about it and I came up with the term, paintography. That’s what the digital prints are, a combination of painting and photography.
I did a google search on paintography, and I’m not the first to have thought of it, though I haven’t seen anyone else use the term in relation to portraits.
I use the term paintography at my portrait web site.
I think paintography has great potential and might be the solution to the problem, what do we call what we do.
What do you think of paintography as a way to describe paintings from photos?
Please add your thoughts in the comments section.
Learn the art concepts and software steps for turning photos into paintings in Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop with the tutorial movies on the Painting for Photographers DVD. Use the brushes on the Artistry Bonus CD for hand painting backgrounds and hand tinting photos. I’m available to paint client portraits, or if you’re a photographer, I’m available for subcontracted paintings. And I’m available for portfolio building photography sessions.
