This is absolutely fascinating. I’ve now been looking at Alex Colville’s paintings and trying to work out what it is about them that makes them look like CGI and how/why he did that in a world where CGI didn’t exist yet. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
– Total lack of atmospheric perspective (things don’t fade into the distance)
– Very realistic shading but no or only very faint shadows cast by ambient light.
– Limited interaction between objects and environment (shadows, ripples etc)
– Flat textures and consistent lighting used for backgrounds that would usually show a lot of variation in lighting, colour and texture
– Bodies apparently modelled piece by piece rather than drawn from life, and in a very stiff way so that the bodies show the pose but don’t communicate the body language that would usually go with it. They look like dolls.
– Odd composition that cuts off parts that would usually be considered important (like the person’s head in the snowy driving scene)
– Very precise drawing of structures and perspective combined with all the simplistic elements I’ve already listed. In other words, details in the “wrong” places.
What’s fascinating about this is that in early or bad CGI, these things come from the fact that the machine is modelling very precisely the shapes and perspectives and colours, but missing out on some parts that are difficult to render (shadows, atmospheric perspective) and being completely unable to pose bodies in such a way as to convey emotion or body language.
But Colville wasn’t a computer, so he did these same things *on purpose*. For some reason he was *aiming* for that precise-but-all-wrong look. I mean, mission accomplished! The question in my mind is, did he do this because he was trying to make the pictures unsettling and alienating, or because in some way, this was how he actually saw the world?
omf i never thought i’d find posts about alex colville on tumblr, but! he’s a local artist where i’m from & i work at a library/archives and have processed a lot of documents related to his art. just wanted to give my two cents!
my impression is that colville did see the world as an unsettling place and a lot of his work was fueled by this general ~malaise?? but in a lot of cases, he was trying to express particular fears or traumas. for instance, this painting (horse and train) was apparently inspired by a really tragic experience his wife had:
iirc she was in a horrible automobile crash, as the car she was in collided with a train. i find it genuinely horrifying to look at, knowing the context, but a lot of colville’s work is like that? idk he just seems to capture the feeling you get in nightmares where everything is treacle-ish and slow and inevitable.
fell down in the godsdamned creek. skinned my elbow to hell. water so cold I’m still shaking and I’ve been standing in the sun for 35 minutes. my ass hurts because the rocks in the creek are insane. my face is a bit swollen from the sunburn and the creature jumped at my braid and yanked it so hard I nearly fell, and now my head hurts. ate so much redcurrant my stomach lining probably disintegrated.
I cannot express how happy I am. so alive. so happy.
the sheets are too cold for me because of the sunburn but also the room is hot after the whole day of 30+ degrees weather. can’t open the window because the bats right outside of it are wild and misbehaving. can’t sleep in the other room because it’s the creature’s room, of course. I think there is a martin in the south wall again and a horse fly bit me with on the elbow godsdamned open wound. no way I’ll sleep tonight but I’m giddy like a kid. I’m so happy to be here and experience it all, feel everything with my body so intensely. in the morning I will eat my weight in geeseberries
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