Work from life or from photos?

[Linda Brandon]

Originally Posted by Jim Riley

I have a great deal of difficulty with the anger and fear of photographic reference.

Everyone who has posted so far on this thread uses photos some/all/most of the time. The question (okay, my question) is whether it is "worth" the expense and incredibly time consuming "bother" of learning to paint from life. People who are teaching others how to do work from life (including me) have a strong interest in convincing others to answer "yes" to this question. But I'm open to hearing other sides to this issue.

Here's the side I want to hear speak: anyone who will say, "I can't work from life at all but I'm making a great living as a portrait artist and I think my work is excellent." Or how about some variation of: "I can't draw from life at all but my photographic references are so wonderful and I can use them so well that I feel it is not necessary for me to learn to work from life."

[Allan Rahbek]

Hi,
I believe that a photo reference can easily "lift" a painting to a certain level, just by tracing the lines and fill in some colors. But to create a really convincing image you have to know how the eye perceive the three dimentionally world.

If you focus on a person you won

[Marvin Mattelson]

The work I have done from life informs the decisions I make when painting from photos. The additions I made during the last sitting were to bolster the areas that I knew would have had better information than my photos could provide. Painting from life is far more challenging and therefore offers far greater opportunity for growth.

I'm not saying photography isn't useful. I have cultivated my photographic skills to make my reference as viable as possible. I don't begrudge or belittle it. It just can not, in any way, compete with the vision of the human eye. Can anyone seriously dispute this?

If I didn't think that life painting was the best way to master the art of painting I'd have my students sitting in the studio copying photos. Been there! Done that! No contest!

[Mike McCarty]

I enjoy this discussion, however, I'm not particularly proud of the way it got started. Marvin, I think you walked around the corner and for no fault of your own got sucker punched. I know you are capable of defending yourself but fair is fair. I should have looked around the corner to see if someone was coming, sorry. With that said, cheers and play ball.

[Allan Rahbek]

[QUOTE=Marvin Mattelson] It just can not, in any way, compete with the vision of the human eye.QUOTE]

As Cezanne said: "You paint as if you only got one eye"
So does the camera.

Most naturalistic painters paint that way, and that, of cause, is a personal choice based on personal taste. No problem with that.

If we look at the human vision, it is based on the two eyes, helping each other to define distance and volume of objects. I have often seen cats and birds take there heads from side to side to get a more three dimensional picture of the things they are focused on. You define distance and volume through the angles of the individual eyesight.

That meaning, if you want to focus on every detail in a painting ( as the one eyed camera can ) you must accept it as an unnatural way of perceiving. This is not the way we see things. It

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

This debate is very interesting: it also provides good arguments in leading the taste of my clients, whose eyes are often so contaminated by photographic vision that they expect a photographic approach.
I found the use of photos as difficult to master as the use of the brush.
Only recently I think I achieved a balance between the one eyed and the stereo vision Allan has so well explained.

I was delighted when I read David Bailey's A Secret Knowledge, were he explains how almost all the great portraitists of the past used any optical device available(camera lucida, lenses, mirrors, prisms).

As using the same palette of a great artist does not automatically make us as good as him, so using photos does not make a good painting, unless we have the skill to go beyond the photo; a skill which you can only aquire by painting life at any occasion.
I was distressed when my tutor at art school could spot all the paintings done from photos from the live ones and made the good proposition of incorporating live sittings in every commissions!

Quote from Byatt's Essay ' Why painted portrait?'


"What distinguishes painting (or drawing or etching)
From photography

[Michele Rushworth]

Very interesting discussion, especially about the monocular vs binocular vision of the camera vs the artist.

I also strive to create something "better than a photograph" and I'm interested in how you, Ilaria, "lead the taste of your clients" in that direction.

How would you (and the other artists on this Forum) fill in this sentence:

"A painted portrait is more ________ than a photograph." Would you use words like "personal", "powerful", "sensitive"..... what?

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

I think, as Byatt says and also Marvin, that the painting is the image plus my sensitivity, my aestethic sense, my favourite colours, size, scale.
And the more the reference photo is used, the more in the eyes of the client the painting will have to compete and be compared to that photo (I try never to show it), that's why it is clever adding some live sittings even if you then go back and repaint everything from the photo...

There must be a reason for a client to choose you instead of someone else. If they were charmed by some painting in your portfolio they want a little of that special charm to hang on their wall. The hand of the painter is unmistakably recognizeable, much more than the finger on the shutter button unless you are Avedon.
I once got away with saying that comparing a painting and a photo it 's like comparing live music to a record.

ilaria