ROMANTICISM and REALISM

ROMANTICISM:

The image on the right is from the romanticism era. Called The Nightmare, it is a 1781 oil painting by Henry Fuseli.
There are many interpretations about this painting. The canvas seems to portray simultaneously a dreaming woman and the content of her nightmare. The incubus and the horse's head refer to contemporary belief and folklore about nightmares, but have been ascribed more specific meanings by some theorists. Contemporary critics were taken aback by the overt sexuality of the painting, which has since been interpreted by some scholars as anticipating Freudian ideas about the subconscious. (source wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare).




The picture on the right is called The Kiss and was painted by Francesco Hayez. It tells the story about a Risorgimento patriot, saying goodbye to his wife before going to war.

I love how he used dark colours to give it that more of a real feeling as if it was a photograph that was being taken.

REALISM:

The painting below is called Mr Henry Clay Pierce created by Anders Zorn, and was painted in 1899. My interpretation of this painting is that Anders wanted to show the real life that people live and that getting a picture of yourself painted in your room with reasonably dark lighting was as real as it was going to get and not getting painted in a seemingly magical forest or on a moonlit balcony with a million stars lighting up the sky.

The painting on the right is called Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet, and was painted by Gustave Courbet in 1854. To me, I feel like the artist just wanted to show a normal day in his life meeting two friends along the way. I also noticed that he made it more real by using natural colours and not bright colours where there shouldn't be any.

Influences 1

The image on the right is off a main character in a game series called Metal Gear Solid. The creator of this character is called Yoji Skinkawa. This design has been reused and edited again and again by other designers for various spin-off games.
The design for this character was heavily influenced by the appearances of certain celebrities. For example, the very first design for this character (who is called Solid Snake) resembles an actor called Michael Biehn. The picture below shows this:

On the right hand side of the picture is the very earliest image of Solid Snake that we ever see. The design looks almost identical to the actor on the left hand side who is called Michael Biehn.



Another character designed by Yoji Shinkawa which has been influenced by real life actors is this image on the right:


Once again, this artist has designed another character's looks on the appearance of Sean Connery. This is a classic example of heavy influence.