I'm very much in the camp of "what's the point of having realistic paintings when we already have cameras?" If you want to talk of "obsolete art," then to me, realistic art has been rendered obsolete by the invention of cameras that can take colored pictures. The only reason why paintings like this even exist is because photography wasn't invented yet. I am, are realistic portraits even a thing anymore in the 21st century? Going back to the video, I'm really having trouble finishing the video because it's so terrible. It's the whole stereotypical, "The ancient Greeks/Romans were awesome! The Renaissance was awesome because they recognize how the ancient Greeks/Romans were awesome! Progress was straightforward until these shitters from the early 20th century ruined everything!" It ignores everything outside of the West. It presumes that there was "inferior art," presumably medieval art, that we "grew" out of. We might have developed more types of paints and more technique, but art isn't something that can be progressed in a meaningful sense. All of this is opinion, of course. I think Girl with a Pearl Earring is a thoroughly unremarkable painting and Mona Lisa is a horribly overrated portrait that only got popular because Napoleon liked it and the painting was stolen from the Louvre in a famous heist during the 1900s. But proclaiming my own personal preferences and tastes as the only right one, or worse, an objective one, is complete asinine.
You know how Citizen Kane is an oooookaaaay movie from a modern perspective but from the perspective of any movie that came out before it it's OMFG AMAZING because it introduced nonlinear time, ECU, voiceover, and a half-dozen other cinematic conventions we take for granted now?
I still stand by the Mona Lisa being horribly overrated.
That's fine. I've never stood in line to see it. But you also said that the "Mona Lisa is a horribly overrated portrait that only got popular because Napoleon liked it and the painting was stolen from the Louvre in a famous heist during the 1900s." With any luck you now recognize that this opinion, regardless of whether or not it is "complete asinine", is factually incorrect.
Well sure. I didn't realize it was already popularized by a bunch of kings before Napoleon.
Funny you should ask:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/photogallery/official-portraits-us-presidents However:
http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/new_official_portrait_released/
Will Obama have a painted one too?
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think photography is actually what influenced the rise of impressionism and modernism. The idea was to create art that could only exist as a painting. So realistic depictions, and eventually depictions in general, fell by the wayside in favour of works like this.