New Media : Painting:: Digital painting on ipad, 285,000 strokes; iphone paint program Brushes; Jorge Colombo; and robophot - computer scanned portraits with high definition.

 

Photo realistic painting, for illustration purpose - Kyle Lambert, uk artist -. This type of painting is the same as the traditional layering-on, illustration technique but applied using an ipad as canvas.

There is no thickness to the painting - all digital point by point. And also there is no structural relationships between one stroke to the other. This is an example of a very good hyper realistic painting - similar to the Chuck Close type of work in the 70s.

It has no pretention of research in any aesthetic problematic, nor re-presentational for a deeper reading. It is a very competant realistic replica of - maybe an existing photo.

Not after a real life model. (Without a real life Morgan Freeman sitting in front of him).

That is why this looks like a super photo - it is a handmade reproduction of a photo - plus or minus a few color patches here and there.

 Ipad is a remarkable support .



In the New Yorker magazine, each week, an artist - Jorge Colombo using Brushes an application for the iphone - does a scene in New York. Lets look at that and see how the two types of paintings compare?
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/finger-painting 
http://www.newyorker.com/the-new-yorker-blog/cover-story-finger-painting




I visited Ars Electronica last week, where I have tried a robophot portrait, by photographer  - Daniel Boschung - Art and Face Cartographer - from Zurich.  He has developed a robot photo scanner system to take portraits of people and art work.
The robot scans the face in 15mn, carefully thoroughly, just like a geographical land for map making, horizontally on the face, line by line.  Up and down, focused sharply with high details.

 Then, each take is sewn together with as little seams as possible. These portraits show a type of flattening of the face - and it is like that because the face as a surface, has been swept by the lens with specific points in each take as the focus.  The sitter is told to focus a long distance away, with no movement in the face.
Normally a portrait is lively because the person has some fleeting expression in the face, whether the fleeting moment is very quickly - like someone who lied and tried to hide it - or a moment lost in space, like Mona Lisa, smiling for herself - but a human portrait is interesting because of the interior life of the person.  The body is the support for the life.  Here curiously, these portraits are static.

Could a high quality detailed portrait be also lively?  Would say, an ultra high definition lens - such as those that you take a water drop, or slow photography - like these - be able to catch the fleeting moment with the high details be more suitable for lively human portraits?

 A map of the world is flat.  A map of the face also looks flat.
However the details are exceptional and this type of portrait is not common.
More portraits here:  www.robophot.com

Cartography is for retracing of specific details, for combing of missing things in an ample time frame, careful and slow research time frame.  Transported onto portraiture, what might be a fruitful application ?  Aside from our normal wish for a lively portrait of a loved one or for art?

Other portraits taken with an ordinary camera - Canon G5 - an old camera with 6mb pixel, less than the current iphone camera shows a presence of the sitter that a scanner picture does not have.  We can compare the difference of pictural interest.

Setting of sitter, using phone camera, 3mega pixel.  Photo: E.Durand


Here is the Face Cartography picture of Daniel Boschung; its a mapping of the face, just like a map of the earth.  Sections of the face in high definition is taken, then stitched together.  That is why, the stitching together is v important otherwise the face image might not align properly.  Almost in all of these pictures, the face has been flattened.

Also the eyes of all the sitters seem to point to a spot somewhere up in the sky somewhere.  Why is this necessary?  Wouldnt it be better if the sitter seem to be looking at the viewer instead?

All the faces have been flattened - just like a map of the world, flattened.
How do you like these portraits?

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1979 Sigmar Polke






Lastly, one of the most memorable contemporary painting master - Sigmar Polke  the German painter - had a show in Paris many years ago.  We were totally flabbergasted by the amount of research and experiments he has done on painting.  After seeing the show, we said, no need to do anymore, hes done everything.  Of course, it is not true, there has been more new things since then.  But, just have a look at this  body of work and we could understand what painting even back then, could encompass.




And finally, we look at Leonardo Da Vinci - the few paintings that he has done, and why its so important?  In what way were his paintings so overwhelmingly recognized as the top of the tops?
Is it the softness, the interminable layering of love that he poured into his brush strokes?  The intelligent organisation of the underlying structural musculation of the face?  And the almost fleeting expression - the fumato which contributes to the liveliness?  I must do more research to see what have many others discovered in his paintings.  Why is the Mona Lisa "the number one" - or amongst one of the most admired - painting in the world?

There are so many Youtubes on the Mona Lisa - from the BBC to numerous independant self initiated non academic personal interests; here is one which shows many famous paintings, and the Mona Lisa is the first on the list - as a simple introduction to painting for the every man's catalogue. There are many other ones which involves much further specific detailed research on the Mona Lisa painting - which I would like to explore further later on.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1btt6iNNvk