Would you like to learn a lot more about realist painting? Here is a list of some things that I studied in
depth in order to get me started as a romantic realist oil painter. If you study them as well, you'll be on your way too:
This is the ultimate resource for the plain nuts and bolts of all forms of painting. It's more or less an encyclopedia of
how-to, what-is, and what the final word is on genuinely archival techniques. Don't be fooled by the so-called "permanence"
ratings listed on your tubes of paint. This book will tell you the truth about how permanent your pigments really are.
A must-own for any serious oil painter.
This book is what got my career started. In the late 1800s, these artists issued in the last great movement of realistic
painting technique, combined with romantic themes. This book covers all the major artists in that movement and inspired me to
become a painter.
One of the earliest (and only) groups of women painters in history, their work is after the fashion of the Pre-Raphaelite
movement and employs some of the best compositional work I have seen. Studying these works is a great way to learn how to
compose an image well.
In my opinion, the greatest oil painter to have yet lived; technically, thematically, in grandeur, conception, execution, color
and composition. Frederick Leighton had it all in spades. He was also the last truly great gasp before modernism swallowed
romance and realism for nearly a hundred years. I learn new things every time I see his work.
Perhaps the best painter of human bodies there has ever been. Although much of his work is simple "genre" painting, i.e.
peasants sitting around doing nothing, he also produced some of my favorite paintings of all time. Studying one of Bougeureau's
painted faces for half an hour in person taught me more about painting human skin than four years of art school.
Nobody beats J.W. Waterhouse in the romance department. His early work exhibits enormous technical prowess, and his themes
resonate across a hundred years to this day. If he hadn't let his technique drop off as his career progressed, he might have
rivaled Leighton as my favorite painter of all time. His portrayal of emotion in his figure's faces, however, is still something
from which a great deal can be learned.
A powerhouse painter of lavish environments, Alma-Tadema was a fine painter of people, but he stands out as the grandmaster of all
things that do not include the human body: stone, metal, flowers, water, and fabric were all putty in his hands, and he packed these
elements into some of the most sumptuous compositions ever painted. Alma-Tadema is a good painter to study, because the general
theme of his work tends to be "look how awesome a realist painter I am". And he surely was.
Although he didn't aspire to much more than painting the portraits of aristocrats, John Singer Sargent is without a doubt one of
the best figure painters there has yet been. Don't be fooled by the seemingly effortless quality of his work, though. In reality,
he worked very hard to make his work look like he hadn't worked very hard, if that makes any sense. The effects he achieved within
his limited minimalist technique can teach one a lot about the bare bones of realism and the fundamentals of making things look
"real".
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Following are links I have exchanged with other art websites:
Fantasy Dragon Artwork
- Beyond This Point There Be Dragons is a Dragon Fantasy book which includes Fantasy Pictures, Stories & Famous Dragon Tales.
Abstract Art by Keith Garrow -
Online Art Gallery of abstract oil paintings by British artist Keith Garrow. Purchase artworks direct from the artist.
ArtMam.net
