It's currently closed for renovation and set to reopen in November but if you have a chance to go see the Frick Collection in New York, I strongly recommend it for two of the most photorealistic paintings I've ever seen: the portraits of Sir Thomas More [1] and Thomas Cromwell [2] by Hans Holbein the Younger (sadly the digitized versions are low resolution and don't do them justice).
The paintings are 500 years old but look like photographic portraits, down to the individual hairs in the stubble on More's chin. Realism was in vogue at the time but there weren't many other artists who were as good as Hans Holbein.
Thats an obsessive level of detail for that era. Later Rembrandt's school were focusing more on the play of shadows on given subject and its surroundings, but most of the details were not to this level, at least not those I've seen up close (but still some parts were pretty crazy, ie embroidered collar or vein structure of wrinkled skin of an old woman).
Obviously clothing and hairstyles change. More recently, average BMI is higher, or people are more likely to be tattooed. I'm sure there's other differences that aren't coming to mind.
But even setting aside any of that, it's pretty rare that I see a portrait that old and I think it could conceivably be recent.
even the amount of tattoos depends on culture and region. lots of cultures around the world practice some form of tattooing. even the BMI thing varies somewhat because different BMIs are healthy for different ethnic groups.
Its funny that you say that since photography was invented in France in that period. Was it the paintings that were photorealistic, or the photos that were painterly?
The nature of the photographic mechanism becomes a new definition of “reality,” but it is still a cultural byproduct, leaving Realness to be still uncovered in all kinds of ways
In early photography history there was a pictorialist movement where people used special sort focus lenses to introduce more of a painterly quality. These lenses, such as Rodenstock Imagon still exist and are sought after.
So what you’re saying is that the mirror is the measure, and that the projections based on photons, etc. are fundenmentally evidenced by the form of the mirror image?
> You can substitute "photorealistic" with "looks like the square (or rectangle) picture in the mirror".
Reflections in the mirror have depth and motion. Even without the viewer or the subject moving, the viewer can see depth in the mirror that isn't in a photo. In those respects, photos are more like paintings than mirrors. Of course, in other respects, they're more like mirrors.
