What do you think?
Rate this book
Exactitude: Hyperrealist Art Today
Essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary art in the twenty-first century. Realism has played an important role in art history ever since the discovery of perspective. Here, John Russell Taylor delineates the artist’s endeavor to re-create the smallest detail, from centuries before the invention of photography to the present day.
This book has been published to complement a series of shows called “Exactitude” at London’s Plus One Gallery of contemporary artists working in a figurative, hyperrealist style. The diversity of such works, whether still lifes, extreme close-ups, large-scale cityscapes, landscapes, or commercial packaging, is revealed. The artists, including Pedro Campos, Clive Head, Ben Johnson, David Ligare, Cynthia Poole, John Salt, Cesar Santander, Ben Schonzeit, and Tjalf Sparnaay, come from all over the world but are united here by their meticulous approach to their work whether they are depicting people, American diners, book spines, or car engines. 545 color, 5 b&w illustrations
This book has been published to complement a series of shows called “Exactitude” at London’s Plus One Gallery of contemporary artists working in a figurative, hyperrealist style. The diversity of such works, whether still lifes, extreme close-ups, large-scale cityscapes, landscapes, or commercial packaging, is revealed. The artists, including Pedro Campos, Clive Head, Ben Johnson, David Ligare, Cynthia Poole, John Salt, Cesar Santander, Ben Schonzeit, and Tjalf Sparnaay, come from all over the world but are united here by their meticulous approach to their work whether they are depicting people, American diners, book spines, or car engines. 545 color, 5 b&w illustrations
- GenresArtNonfiction
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 28, 2009
3 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
John Russell Taylor
83 books1 followerJohn Russell Taylor was an English critic, author, and historian whose work shaped modern writing on film, theatre, and visual art. Educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and the Courtauld Institute of Art, he emerged in the early 1960s as one of Britain’s most influential cultural commentators. He wrote on cinema for Sight and Sound and Monthly Film Bulletin, and became film critic of The Times, later serving for decades as its art critic.
Taylor authored landmark studies of British drama and cinema, as well as acclaimed biographies of figures such as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh, and Alec Guinness. His book Strangers in Paradise: The Hollywood Emigres 1933–1950 remains a key work on European artists in American film. After developing a close friendship with Alfred Hitchcock, he became the director’s authorised biographer.
From the early 1970s he also taught film at the University of Southern California, while contributing to major British and American publications. In addition to film and theatre, Taylor wrote extensively on modern and contemporary art, producing numerous monographs and broader studies. He also served on juries at major international film festivals and edited Films and Filming magazine for several years.
Taylor authored landmark studies of British drama and cinema, as well as acclaimed biographies of figures such as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh, and Alec Guinness. His book Strangers in Paradise: The Hollywood Emigres 1933–1950 remains a key work on European artists in American film. After developing a close friendship with Alfred Hitchcock, he became the director’s authorised biographer.
From the early 1970s he also taught film at the University of Southern California, while contributing to major British and American publications. In addition to film and theatre, Taylor wrote extensively on modern and contemporary art, producing numerous monographs and broader studies. He also served on juries at major international film festivals and edited Films and Filming magazine for several years.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 30, 2014
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality
- TS Eliot, Four Quartets
If that’s true, this glorious book won’t find many takers. But maybe HYPERrealism hasn’t got that much to do with reality. The labyrinth beckons. What is real?
The illusion of reality is real. You remember that old Greek unlikely story about the painting competition. No? Well, there was a paint-off between two painters as to who could do the most realistic painting. First guy unveiled his painting, and lo, birds from the sky flew down and tried to peck the grapes right off of the canvas, so he figured he’d won. Second guy asked the first guy to pull back the curtain to display the second guy’s painting, and when he tried, he found there was no curtain, that was the painting, so the second guy won.
In western art you had centuries of trying to make images as realistic as possible, whether their subject was of this or an imaginary world.
Van Eyck, Vermeer, Holbein, Canaletto, the pre-Raphaelites, all the way down to 1907 when
some artists figured that reality had become TOO MUCH for realism. Speed and psychology, anarchism and Einstein, the merging of the eye with the I, a cultural explosion going on everywhere and they were in the middle of it, discovering cubism, fauvism, abstraction, postimpressionism, symbolism, all that ism all over everything.
You know the story of 20th century art, of how the avant garde in only a few decades moved from the outer fringe of crazed unacceptability into stage centre, and took over, so that by the 50s there was no more modish & sought after painter than Jack the Dripper, and later on, Andy Warhol and Damian Hirst with his sharks and cows and Tracy Emin with her bed.
The photorealist movement began in the 70s and this book documents its current state of health which is good. The photorealists were of course rebelling against the rebels who had become the establishment. They painted photographs; sometimes they turned a little snapshot into a 15 feet by eight feet giant canvas; sometimes they took their own photos of things that were there already; sometimes they manipulated reality, such as by driving an old car round America & photographing it in various places & painting the photographs. Anyway a lot of establishment types hated this kind of thing.
hmm, let’s try another one
You see my problem – as this book says,
many of these paintings defy reproduction, as once reproduced they return to the appearance of the photographs on which they are based.
Photorealism became hyperrealism which apparently now goes by the name Exactitude, but what’s in a name – it’s still a rather kitschy agglomeration of precisely delineated urban landscapes, diner cruets, industrial desolation, old cars, boys toys like motorbikes and trucks, ever so shiny, poolside scenes, mournful landscapes, reflections, shimmers, deserted American back roads, baroque architecture, rust, groceries, kids toys, garish confectionery, and more depopulated streets. Some of the photorealists have a sweet melancholy tang of alt country Americana, almost to the point of cliché (John Salt apparently never met a busted old car he didn’t paint) and you can see that the oh so confrontational post-artists of the 2010s are not going to be impressed with five brilliantly finished pickle jars or some kind of curly sprocket from a lawnmower.
The failure of the media and large art institutions to embrace this art only intensifies its outsider status, consolidating it as an avant-garde movement.
It will not escape fans of irony that the meticulous adherence to the world as it appears to the human eye now occupies the same cultural space that the cubists once did almost exactly 100 years ago. The wheel has turned.
In fact I don’t think these wonderful paintings do look much like photographs, or if they do the photographs must be on acid. It’s an art of extreme intensification of mood through precision. My kind of poison.
December 18, 2017
John Russell Taylor.
He wrote the text for this book but I knew that I had seen that name before as well. About a half century ago I read a fine film book, Cinema Eye, Cinema Ear, which I remembered had been written by a "John Russell Taylor." Not likely that this was the same person after all that time, but perhaps a son or grandson.
Nope. Same John Russell Taylor.
So was he interested in mid-Twentieth Century film and now also interested in Twenty-first Century painting? Not so surprising, I guess. After all, I have both interests.
But I didn't (and couldn't) write books about them.
For centuries, one goal of painters was to capture an exact image of something. The painter may choose to change details but the ability to duplicate the look of something or someone was always desirable. People experimented with the concept of trompe l'oeil painting, paintings that looked so real that they "fooled the eye." That was never the goal of most artists but when done well it could be very effective.
Then in the Nineteenth Century, the medium of photography was developed and made capturing an image accurately easy. However, as I said, "capturing an image accurately" was seldom the artists' only aim then.
And what if the artist did want to do that? It was not always highly regarded. The surrealist artist Salvador Dali could render images in splendid detail. However, George Orwell wrote about Dali:
And suppose that you have nothing in you except your egoism and a dexterity that goes no higher than the elbow; suppose that your real gift is for a detailed, academic, representational style of drawing, your real métier to be an illustrator of scientific textbooks.
But in the 1960's, Maggie Bollaert and Colin Pettit say in their Preface to this book, Photorealism began to be recognized as "a specific genre." (Despite the title of the book referring to "Hyperrealist Art," the term "Photorealism" is used throughout the book. "Exactitude" is a comment on the artists' incredible precision.) Photorealism is a style of near-photographic precision. The paintings represented in this book are amazing in the amount of detail in each picture. One's first reaction is likely to be, "That's terrific. It looks just like a photograph." But just as photographs are frequently "art," so are the works shown here.
There are twenty-seven artists represented here. (I don't know how much this matters, but it is impossible not to notice that only one of the twenty-seven is female.) What is striking is not how similar their paintings are but how different.
Each artist has a section of the book. They are arranged in alphabetical order. There is an introductory page telling about the artist, followed by pictures of the artist's work. Most of the artists seem to have overriding special subjects for their paintings. For example, the first artist discussed, John Baeder, has mostly paintings of American diners. The second, Paul Beliveau, specializes in paintings of the spines of books.
About one of the artists, Carl Laubin, the introductory material says, 'Carl Laubin is not a Photorealist. It is arguable whether he is even a realist." Most of his paintings shown are "architectural paintings...of buildings that do not exist." And don't look like they exist. So why is he included? "Even if Laubin was painting a fantasy completely out of his own imagination, to make it work as he wanted he had to have mastered everything there was to know about perspective and proportion, and, like Dali and his Surrealist followers, to produce an overwhelming impression of precision." (I really can't recognize the buildings that Laubin combines in some of his paintings but I do know that the black and white photograph shown in the painting "Si Monumentum Requiris" is Herbert Mason's photograph "St. Paul's Survives" showing St Paul's during the Blitz.)
Other artists and principal subjects are:
Pedro Campos:
Glassware, fruits in transparent plastic, marbles, soda cans
Randy Dudley:
Urban landscapes, bridges
David Finnigan:
Doorways, windows, neon signs, items on restaurant tables, waterscapes
Simon Harling:
Automobiles, highways, ships
Clive Head:
Urban landscapes
Gus Heinze:
Machinery, parts of trains, urban buildings and signs, river landscapes
Simon Hennessey:
People, usually in close-ups of faces or parts of faces, nudes
Andrew Holmes:
Vehicles (cars, trucks), reflections in shiny objects
Ben Johnson:
Buildings, single rooms, looking down at cities
David Ligare:
Still lives, landscapes, people posed as in medieval paintings, horses, portrait
Christian Marsh:
Urban landscapes, Venice canals
Tom Martin:
Shiny metal objects, commercial food packages
Jack Mendenhall:
People at swimming pools, elaborately furnished rooms
Robert Neffson:
Urban landscapes
Cynthia Poole:
Candy in brightly colored wrappers, kitchenware, clothing
Francisco Rangel:
Urban landscapes, bridges, train stations
John Salt:
Old, wrecked cars, urban landscapes
Cesar Santander:
Old metal toys, rusting old containers, crayons
Ben Schonzeit:
Still lives (flowers, fruits and vegetables), animals, landscapes
Steve Smulka:
Still lives (seashells, plants, glassware, bottles)
Tjalf Sparnaay:
Still lives (leaves, food, flowers, Vermeer book in plastic wrap)
James Van Patten:
Landscapes, especially at bodies of water
Steve Whitehead:
Landscapes, bridges
Craig Wylie:
Portraits, nudes, washrooms, sink
There is a Preface by Maggie Bollaert and Colin Pettit (gallery owners), a Foreward by Clive Head (artist), and an Introduction by John Russell Taylor (art, film, theatre critic). These are very informative.
The book itself is gorgeous. It is quite large (10.75" × 13"). The paper is heavy. It appears to me that the reproductions of the paintings are excellent. The large size of the book means that the reproductions can be a decent size.
I don't know how someone more knowledgeable about the subject would feel, but I would enthusiastically recommend this book.
He wrote the text for this book but I knew that I had seen that name before as well. About a half century ago I read a fine film book, Cinema Eye, Cinema Ear, which I remembered had been written by a "John Russell Taylor." Not likely that this was the same person after all that time, but perhaps a son or grandson.
Nope. Same John Russell Taylor.
So was he interested in mid-Twentieth Century film and now also interested in Twenty-first Century painting? Not so surprising, I guess. After all, I have both interests.
But I didn't (and couldn't) write books about them.
For centuries, one goal of painters was to capture an exact image of something. The painter may choose to change details but the ability to duplicate the look of something or someone was always desirable. People experimented with the concept of trompe l'oeil painting, paintings that looked so real that they "fooled the eye." That was never the goal of most artists but when done well it could be very effective.
Then in the Nineteenth Century, the medium of photography was developed and made capturing an image accurately easy. However, as I said, "capturing an image accurately" was seldom the artists' only aim then.
And what if the artist did want to do that? It was not always highly regarded. The surrealist artist Salvador Dali could render images in splendid detail. However, George Orwell wrote about Dali:
And suppose that you have nothing in you except your egoism and a dexterity that goes no higher than the elbow; suppose that your real gift is for a detailed, academic, representational style of drawing, your real métier to be an illustrator of scientific textbooks.
But in the 1960's, Maggie Bollaert and Colin Pettit say in their Preface to this book, Photorealism began to be recognized as "a specific genre." (Despite the title of the book referring to "Hyperrealist Art," the term "Photorealism" is used throughout the book. "Exactitude" is a comment on the artists' incredible precision.) Photorealism is a style of near-photographic precision. The paintings represented in this book are amazing in the amount of detail in each picture. One's first reaction is likely to be, "That's terrific. It looks just like a photograph." But just as photographs are frequently "art," so are the works shown here.
There are twenty-seven artists represented here. (I don't know how much this matters, but it is impossible not to notice that only one of the twenty-seven is female.) What is striking is not how similar their paintings are but how different.
Each artist has a section of the book. They are arranged in alphabetical order. There is an introductory page telling about the artist, followed by pictures of the artist's work. Most of the artists seem to have overriding special subjects for their paintings. For example, the first artist discussed, John Baeder, has mostly paintings of American diners. The second, Paul Beliveau, specializes in paintings of the spines of books.
About one of the artists, Carl Laubin, the introductory material says, 'Carl Laubin is not a Photorealist. It is arguable whether he is even a realist." Most of his paintings shown are "architectural paintings...of buildings that do not exist." And don't look like they exist. So why is he included? "Even if Laubin was painting a fantasy completely out of his own imagination, to make it work as he wanted he had to have mastered everything there was to know about perspective and proportion, and, like Dali and his Surrealist followers, to produce an overwhelming impression of precision." (I really can't recognize the buildings that Laubin combines in some of his paintings but I do know that the black and white photograph shown in the painting "Si Monumentum Requiris" is Herbert Mason's photograph "St. Paul's Survives" showing St Paul's during the Blitz.)
Other artists and principal subjects are:
Pedro Campos:
Glassware, fruits in transparent plastic, marbles, soda cans
Randy Dudley:
Urban landscapes, bridges
David Finnigan:
Doorways, windows, neon signs, items on restaurant tables, waterscapes
Simon Harling:
Automobiles, highways, ships
Clive Head:
Urban landscapes
Gus Heinze:
Machinery, parts of trains, urban buildings and signs, river landscapes
Simon Hennessey:
People, usually in close-ups of faces or parts of faces, nudes
Andrew Holmes:
Vehicles (cars, trucks), reflections in shiny objects
Ben Johnson:
Buildings, single rooms, looking down at cities
David Ligare:
Still lives, landscapes, people posed as in medieval paintings, horses, portrait
Christian Marsh:
Urban landscapes, Venice canals
Tom Martin:
Shiny metal objects, commercial food packages
Jack Mendenhall:
People at swimming pools, elaborately furnished rooms
Robert Neffson:
Urban landscapes
Cynthia Poole:
Candy in brightly colored wrappers, kitchenware, clothing
Francisco Rangel:
Urban landscapes, bridges, train stations
John Salt:
Old, wrecked cars, urban landscapes
Cesar Santander:
Old metal toys, rusting old containers, crayons
Ben Schonzeit:
Still lives (flowers, fruits and vegetables), animals, landscapes
Steve Smulka:
Still lives (seashells, plants, glassware, bottles)
Tjalf Sparnaay:
Still lives (leaves, food, flowers, Vermeer book in plastic wrap)
James Van Patten:
Landscapes, especially at bodies of water
Steve Whitehead:
Landscapes, bridges
Craig Wylie:
Portraits, nudes, washrooms, sink
There is a Preface by Maggie Bollaert and Colin Pettit (gallery owners), a Foreward by Clive Head (artist), and an Introduction by John Russell Taylor (art, film, theatre critic). These are very informative.
The book itself is gorgeous. It is quite large (10.75" × 13"). The paper is heavy. It appears to me that the reproductions of the paintings are excellent. The large size of the book means that the reproductions can be a decent size.
I don't know how someone more knowledgeable about the subject would feel, but I would enthusiastically recommend this book.
December 12, 2012
super good overview of hyerrealist painting today, taken from a plus one gallery exactitude shows starting in 2003 in london in . the editor is maggie bollaert, i think the owner of the gallery? and short essays of artists by john russell taylor, who can in 1000 words bring out what is interesting and important about particular artists and techniques, and examples of such. you may have seen the iconic cover "girl with a pearl earring in plastic" by tjalf sparnaay. but also has super examples by christian marsh (wolverhampton), david ligare from LA, steve whitehead (with his shadow works of london and english coast and rural views), and my favorite, james van patten from not sure where, nyc?, who not only uses the traditional acrylic for photorealism, but also water colors, for exactitude, just mind blowing.
May 15, 2017
Good if you want an overview of what is done in hyperrealistic art.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews