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Hello everyone! I hope that you all are well. I know that I have been a little MIA. This past week has been very difficult for me mentally and emotionally. I hope that you are all taking the time to check in and take care of yourselves, especially with the plethora of midterms and papers infesting our lives this week. I thought that I would approach an interesting question that I was exposed to the other day. What is the point of hyperrealism when we have photography?

I thought that I would address this question when doing research on one of my favorite artists: Jono Dry. He is an incredible hyperrealist artist who works primarily in graphite. He is able to produce work with striking lighting and thought-provoking subjects to portray incredible photo-realistic images. The thought behind this post was to address what the point of creating such painstakingly detailed works is when a camera could be used to create the same effect in a much easier way.

Jono struggled with this question earlier on in his career as well, wondering why he spent so much time creating something that could have just been photographed.

For me, I have always been so drawn to photo-realism. Being able to capture something so raw and untouched, so pure and real, has been revolutionary from the beginning of art history. Photorealism is an incredible way of demonstrating the different aspects of the human condition in such a believable way without sacrificing on the creating and artistic opportunities within it. When looking at a piece of artwork that has been so meticulous crafted as if to resemble a photograph while also demonstrating surrealist aspects, the viewer has no choice but to believe in the vision of the artist.

Jono says that “there is a catharsis in the pursuit of perfection”. For me as a viewer, looking at the immense amount of detail in a piece and understanding what the artist has gone through to achieve an incredibly realistic image is incomparable to just viewing a photo of the same subject. As the artist, putting in hours, days, months, into creating something so striking and believable, the end result is a badge of honor that makes the commodity of time worthwhile. The hopes of any artist is to get a viewer to connect with the piece. Hyperrealism reflects life so honestly back at the viewer and forces one to move closer, look deeply into the eyes of the subject, take in all of the work of the artist.

I hope this post gave a little more insight into hyperrealism as I see it. It is an incredible pursuit and magnificent when achieved, something that I strive to be able to bring out of my artwork. I have attached links to Jono Dry’s Instagram and website here. Please go check him out. He is a mastermind.

As always if anything that I discussed in this post stands out, or if any questions arise please feel free to comment and share your thoughts!

Looking forward to next Monday!

~ Riya

Instagram: @riya_aggarwal.art

Personal website: https://theindianartist.weebly.com/

The original Snow White fairytale was published by Brothers Grimm in 1812 in the first edition of Grimms’ Fairy Tales by it’s german title, Schneewittchen. (Be sure not to confuse it with another one of their other tales, Snow White and Rose Red!)

Unlike the Walt Disney retelling of this fairytale, Snow White is a little bit harder to kill in this much older version. In the Brothers Grimm publication, the Evil Queen attempts to murder Snow White four individual times. The first was by hiring the huntsman, in which he is unable to follow through due to Snow White’s beauty. The other three times are quite repetitive, where the evil queen disguises herself and tries to sell the child different things.  The second time, she sells corset laces, then ties them too tight in the hopes Snow White suffocates. The third, she uses a poisoned comb, which the logistics of are questionable at best. Lastly, and most famously, she feeds Snow White the poisoned apple. 

Many scholars have discussed the possible origins of this fairytale, as it was most likely part of oral storytelling long before it was published in writing by Brothers Grimm. A German Historian, Eckhard Sander, claims Snow White may be based upon the life of Margaretha von Waldeck, a German countess born in 1533. Margaretha was sent away to Brussels by her step mother, however while she was there she fell in love with a prince. Her parents did not approve of this relationship, and Margaretha mysteriously died at 21. Her death was ruled as poisoning. Another historian argues that Snow White is based upon a completely different German baroness in the eighteenth century who fled into the woods to escape her stepmother. 

Even older than 1533, the Roman legend of Chione shares similarities with Snow White as well. Most obviously, the name of the protagonist, Chione, translates to Snow. Chione was described as being one of the most beautiful women in the world, causing gods (Apollo and Hermes) to fall in love with her.  

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The Illustration I created still focuses on the infamous way the Evil Queen attempted to murder Snow White. Given the real stories I found that are similar to Snow White, I included more accurate representations of the clothing nobility would have worn in Germany in the 1500s. The website I used for reference can be found here. 

So my friend group’s doing an online dnd campaign over the summer while we pause our current one. It’s a joke-ish Feywild campaign with level 20 fey nobility characters bumbling around and playing matchmaker. The main story will be the history of the relationship between two NPCs, Queen Mentius and Lady Vethorin, from our main campaign.

This is Aolinda, a mildly unhinged College of Glamour spring Eladrin(elf) artist bard. She’s very full of herself and her art. She ran away from the Vethorin court to be the Mentius court’s premier artist/sculptor. Queen Mentius pays Aolinda handsomely to churn out ship art between Queen Mentius and Lady Vethorin. That’s why Aolinda’s one of the few people who actually kinda likes Queen Mentius. The campaign’s starting scene is gonna be a festival at Lady V’s court and I’m always joking that Queen M will crash it by hiding in one of Aolinda’s statues.

I plan on playing her like one of those snobby, delusional artists who insist that people who don’t “get” her art are stupid. I gave her a cherry blossom theme and associate her with light, warm weather clothes. She had a see-through skirt at some point but I scrapped it because it seemed hard to draw. I wanted to give her a crownlike headdress but she’s not a ruler so that wouldn’t be a wise move in-universe. I always had to check myself to see if the clothes I gave her were too conventional. She’s a weird artist, so I want her to look like a weird artist, not some trendy 20-something. I’m still working on her outfit stuff but I like how her pauldron tattoos turned out.