2y ago

These paintings by Alex Colville were painted in the ‘50s-‘70s, but look like computer graphics from the 2000s

Wikipedia

Gallery of his works (Warning: Depictions of nudity)

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He died in 2013 and one of his last works, from 2008, still has that uncanny feeling to it.
Wtf. Dude time travels and that's what he decides to do?
- To be fair, we do have everything else well under control.
  
  Uhhh...
- Maybe he went back in time, killed the guy who caused world war 2, causing Hitler to raise to power and cause and even worse World War 2, and fell into depression. His only escape was painting about the video games he used to play as a child.
  
  Oddly specific...
Not just the painting itself but body anatomy and mechanics (albeit frozen in one snapshot) and such also resemble computer games, wow this is some seriously trippy shit.
- he must have painted Xavier Renegade Angel
What the hell, you were not exaggerating. This is actually uncanny.
This is kind of amazing.
I'm assuming this was done with heavy use of masking, possibly airbrush, and maybe other painting media? It "feels" like a collage, where every subject is just its own painting kind of composited into the whole. But that gives us completely subjective lighting to work with, which throws our senses for a loop. Just like how old computer graphics are collages of other discrete artworks, again, with no effort wasted on coherent lighting or shadows.
Painted by small paint dots replicating the pixel that would come later.
- Spooky pointillism
  
  Spookilism
Besides not simulating polygons (e.g. the perfectly curved railways), absolutely nailed it. Reminds me of The Sims graphics.
- tesselation
Dogmeat from Fallout 2.5
Is it the stupidly flat lighting, simple geometry with perspective and pointillism that makes it look like old 3d?
- And gradients/Gouraud style shading everywhere.
He also painted Pacific
, which inspired a shot in Heat
- Indeed! Here's the shot.
Sims looking paintings.
Sul sul
Imagine if in an act of ironic self aware, pewdiepie buy that bridge picture.
- Guys, this bot is broken!
Need: 1 art nerd, 1 early 2000 game dev nerd
Task: what methodologies in the art work are similar or even emulated by these early consoles (ps1, Dreamcast)

25 comments