Ever since my obsession last year with the Dutch Masters, I’ve had a keen interest in photorealism.  If I had to analyze this curiosity, I’d say it in part stems from being a child during all of this Neo-Impressionism. Our world is saturated with artists who create abstract or Neo-Impressionist art because it is cheap, fast, and profitable.  Far too many of the artists today fail to appreciate the vital significance of color theory, composition, and form.  There is so little study, so little homework these days and in shows in the art of my generation. 

It is not completely our fault.  We lack the resources of our ancestors.  Without masters to pass on the years-long process of method, we are alone and adrift with our creative impulses.  Perhaps because of this, when I see an artist practicing realism with skill, I am struck dumb. How did this person develop this talent?  Who taught them their craft?  More likely than not, this artist is the result of a tenacious brilliance that casts a different glow than that of the masters.  A self-generating heat from within.  It is not something passed down, it’s something pulled out.  I love this.

With the advent of photography, the audience began to lose interest in realistic painting.  There was a new medium to compete with and it was accurate in a way that painting could not be.  In the last decade, there has been a resurgence of realistic painters willing to try to bring something new and different to the table.  I can’t over-emphasize how important I think these painters are to the preservation of the trade.  These are the folks who are going to save art. 

For example, wouldn’t you so much rather look at Yigal Ozeri’s work than some muddy Neo-Impressionist or abstract junk art?

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