The Beauty of Realism and Impasto

Hello and welcome.  My name is James Flynn, and I am a new member of this brilliant site, and I would like to welcome you to my first post!......

It has been a long fascination with me how there are many different ways to express what you see using paint.
My personal artistic journey so far has been a long and exciting one!
In my opinion, the two extremes at either end of the scale, has to be "hyperealism", and "impasto" painting techniques.  There is no way anybody can say which is best, and this is not the purpose of this post, rather I would like to highlight and celebrate both of these brilliant techniques, and show you the best paintings that I have gathered from both sides of the spectrum.

I will start with the paintings that used to catch my eye back in the day, when I was first discovering the art world, and which still fascinates me today........

"Hyperealism"........

What you are seeing here is the work of Roberto Bernardi.
This mans paintings really have to be seen to be believed. And even when you see them, you still can't quite believe it!!
This painting could quite easily be passed off as a photograph, and it amazes me still that anyone can actually paint in this way.

Here is another by Roberto Bernardi....

Quite amazing, I think you will agree.
Lets see some more amazing hyperealistic paintings, this time from Raphaella Spence......

Again, these paintings are so detailed and real, you only know that you are looking at a painting when somebody tells you that it is!.....

And lastly, I will show you a painting from Simon Hennesy......

And from Tom Martin.......

So there it is, "hyperealism".
Quite an amazing method of putting down paint I hope you all agree.  And I used to wonder how on earth anyone could actually top this?
How could you portray anything with paint following paintings like these?

Well, that is the beauty of art.
A painting does not have to be as detailed and precise as the ones shown above to be a good painting (although the above paintings are good in my opinion, and credit goes out to the artists concerned), and the following paintings that I have gathered, certainly prove it.

Here is a painting from an artist I have recently discovered called Leonid Afremov.....

Quite the opposite end of the scale I think, but a beautiful painting nonetheless.
And here is another from the same artist......

Much less of a realistic approach, but what an amazing "atmosphere" this artist creates!

I will move onto another fascinating artist I have recently discovered called  Francoise Nielly.  She is an amazing portrait artist who I think paints in a very impasto style, using bright, fluorescent colours........

Francoise Nielly really is an amazing painter, and worth checking out...http://www.francoise-nielly.com

And finally I leave you with a another great example of impasto painting by Ben Quilty.....

A slightly disturbing painting, but great nonetheless!!....

So there it is, the two extremes for all to see.
This is the beauty of painting for me, the fact that you can portray things in different ways and different styles, and still produce great paintings.
And I will continue to appreciate both of these amazing styles and I hope that you do too.

I hope that maybe this has given you an extra bit of inspiration!.....

Keep on painting and creating, and I will see you next time, thanks for reading.
James Flynn