Hyperrealism

Totally opposed to certain movements connected with abstract art (abstract expressionism and conceptual art), Hyperrealism aims rather to produce a vision as photographic and polished as possible. It first appeared in the United States in the late 60's and based itself, among other things, on the objectivity of the image and the desire to represent raw reality.

Hyperrealism draws some of its sources from Pop Art, in the sense that it reveals the banality of both everyday and real life. Certain artists pushed back the very limits of this movement, by highlighting the commonness of a scene and emphasizing the defects of a model, or by bestowing an exaggeratedly polished aspect to their canvases.

So that their work would be equally as faithful as possible to reality, certain followers of the movement would project a photograph onto the support before painting. Others tried instead to disconcert the observer with sculptures which actually seemed alive.

In the 70's, John De Andrea and Duane Hanson, two Hyperrealist artists, made moldings of living models which they painted with such great care so that they looked like the real thing. Endowed with clothing and accessories, or completely nude, the characters which they created seemed so alive that people of flesh and blood would just stare at them in wonder.