What are the canonical examples of 'naturalness' achieved with extreme artistic effort?

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I know there are examples in literature, and definitely in art, with photoediting I think? This is for a teaching interview tomorrow, it comes up in the poem I have to teach and it'd be awesome if I could pull up some visual aid/ "multi-sensory teaching" science.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 21:43 (twenty years ago)

I'd assume Photorealism fits in here?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 21:45 (twenty years ago)

http://www.figuresworld.net/movies_tv/robocop/18inchrobocop.jpg

― accountsettings (account), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 21:47 (twenty years ago)

or Poussin/Chardin/etc of the French Studio PAinters or yeah robots

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 21:47 (twenty years ago)

A photorealist work seems fairly open about the amount of effort put in? I guess I meant: something into which hours and hours are put, to best look "dashed off", a sort of visual equivalent of a fashionable deshabilee?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 21:50 (twenty years ago)

Robots are a really interesting example of the question this asks by accident, though!

Antony, could you tell me more about why you think those painters fit?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 21:51 (twenty years ago)

Japanese rock gardens

http://www.lafferty.ca/photos/Montreal/Montreal_Botanical_Gardens_2001/14-rock-garden.jpg

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:21 (twenty years ago)

perfect!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:34 (twenty years ago)

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/sisterarts/neoclassical/images/gardens/small/STOURHEAD-232A.jpg
Stourhead: the height of the 'natural' by 18th century standards, but so supremely contrived (influenced by Claude Lorraine's conception of the natural in the 17th century).

See also: Arthur Devis, Johann Zoffany, Joseph Wright (below), etc.
http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~rviau/ids/Artworks/WrightofDerby/sirbrookeboothby.jpg

― robots in love (robotsinlove), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:34 (twenty years ago)

Those plastic models of sushi that appear in the front windows of some sushi shops.

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:36 (twenty years ago)

http://www.teleculture.com/images/Laib-milkstone-small.jpg

― accountsettings (account), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:44 (twenty years ago)

I think there are many many examples in garden design.

Why not fashion (this old thing I just threw on)? maybe that is too obvious.

― isadora (isadora), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:47 (twenty years ago)

The Miwoks who lived in Yosemite altered the environment in subtle ways to mimic the natural world (the break cause by lightning hitting a tree, for instance) for the sake of aesthetics, which ended up creating the "natural beauty" that John Muir kicked they asses out to make a state park.

― Mattattack (matt attack), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:50 (twenty years ago)

chardin may be a bad example but the landscape painters of that era, esp poussian, have a sketchy, plein air qaulity, a pictorial looseness, but tehy were all contained in the studio, and it took years in the studio to work on it, the composition has a really rigours fomrality, a comoplicated heriachy of eye movements and classical/non classical referents:

http://mapage.noos.fr/dardelf2/museum1/Poussin.jpg

this is a decent example of that?

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:55 (twenty years ago)

http://www.simonho.org/images/Italy/Florence_David.jpg

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:59 (twenty years ago)

rebeuns as well--though it looks chaotic, and raw, it is a perfect example of classical triangular composition...its formally contained:

http://claudia.weblog.com.pt/arquivo/rubens_leucippus.jpg

I am also willing to accept arguements for late, late monet (ie at givenchy) and bonnard in the 20th century (esp the bathtub paintings) and maybe in an american view, fairfield porter or alex katz (porter is an interesting example, b/c he cant fucking paint, and the naturalism is his lack of skills, and all of the other stuff, the colour, and the composition, and the emotionalism, the tenderness, and certain intangiable abstract qualities that make porter such a fantastic american painter, (he works too hard almost, and someimes you can see it, and sometimes ou cant, but centrally, its the pushing of his work, that may not be what yr looking for)

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 23:02 (twenty years ago)

http://www.culturalresources.com/images/Parthenon1.jpg
what with the adjust proportions to make it appear 'right' to the viewer

― robots in love (robotsinlove), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 23:03 (twenty years ago)

http://aging.als.uiuc.edu/2002%2005%2018%209.GerardDurand%20Dancing%20with%20Dtr-In-Law,%20Cheryleen.jpg

― accountsettings (account), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 23:06 (twenty years ago)

Sprezzatura, Xtreme taringing to look naturally charming and artless in court, dance, sport, etc.:
http://130.238.79.99/ilmh/Ren/sprezzatura-castiglione.htm

― Abbott (Abbott), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 23:18 (twenty years ago)

Olmsted and Vaux brought in hundreds of thousands cubic feet of top soil and planted something like 4 million trees/shrubs etc to make the park look as 'natural' as possible.

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 23:29 (twenty years ago)

One might mention the enormous faux ruins, called follies, favored by English aristocrats as decorations for their gardens in the eighteenth century. They built ruined abbeys, ruined towers, ruined cottages, ruined you name it.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 4 May 2006 00:26 (twenty years ago)

What about interior design styles? Shabby chic comes to mind, though I imagine there are much better examples. Rooms that just look cluttered and chucked together at ramdom perhaps, but a lot of careful planning - maybe even some feng shui - has gone into the design.

http://www.visitwaupaca.com/GOLDBIRD002s.jpg

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 4 May 2006 03:02 (twenty years ago)

I can't remember the name of the guy, but there is an amazing contemporary photorealist painter who does work that looks like badly exposed / damaged photographs. He had a show at the MOMA in NYC about 6 years ago. Anyone?

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 4 May 2006 03:05 (twenty years ago)

This makes me think of Jeff Wall, who spends a lot of time setting up, conceptualizing, organizing an image (even if it appears to be a snapshot), e.g.,
http://www.bridgemagazine.org/online/images/overpass.jpg
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/jeffwall/image/roomguide/rm11_flooded_grave.jpg

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Thursday, 4 May 2006 04:34 (twenty years ago)

This also makes me think of make-up and make-up artists.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Thursday, 4 May 2006 04:37 (twenty years ago)

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, "Trout Mask Replica".

(Don Van Vliet's visual art also, a little.)

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 4 May 2006 07:08 (twenty years ago)

faux-fly-on-the-wall tv/film, eg 'the office', 'the thick of it', 'curb'.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Thursday, 4 May 2006 07:45 (twenty years ago)

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