Is painting an eternal art?

Paintings are amongst the most primitive ways of expression of human beings. Cave paintings found all across every continent, continue to exhibit the rich history of paintings and their place in human evolution. Starting from the stone edge, a lot changed in the way paintings are created. Different styles demonstrate different personas, covering a wide variety of subjects; it is safe to say that paintings documented a portion of our history.

While different artists contributed to the richness of this art form, this art form evolved over the period of time. In the present times, where everything is digital, it becomes imperative to look at paintings from a futuristic perspective. With the advent of technology that has given birth to the art form of digital oil painting; a question may arise — How long can the paintings survive? This article is a humble attempt to explore the different aspects of this question.

This article by OilPixel is a humble attempt to explore the different aspects of this question.

Understanding Conventional Canvas Paintings

Conventional paintings that are drawn on canvas using a variety of colours are popular among art enthusiasts. These paintings were either based on themes or often featured the portrayal of known people, serving as their pictorial representation. Canvas paintings can be very expensive because of several reasons.

Firstly, creating these paintings requires a high degree of expertise.

Secondly, it can take several hours of work just to create one painting. The hours required to create a painting depend upon the subject & complexity of the painting.

Thirdly, artists can charge their commission according to their expertise. This is usually very high in the case of renowned artists. This is a reason why these paintings were confined to a certain class and could never make their way to the majority of people. Guess what, the trend still continues even today.

Is Photography a threat to paintings?

Photographs revolutionized the way we capture our memories. What paintings can achieve after several days of work, photographs could do within a single flash or a click. The technology of photography progressed over time.

Cameras first became leaner and lighter and then made their way out of the studios. The advent of touch screen cameras changed the game all together & simplified photography. The same technology further even paved the way for digital painting, but we will talk about it later in the article.

When these cameras were mounted on cell phones, photography became truly accessible to the common people. The way we capture pictures and shoot videos today is something that none of us could have imagined a few decades back. Want to capture a special moment? All it takes is to take out your cell phone and click a picture.

So, will this evolution in the world of photography will act as a threat to paintings? I don’t think so. This is because of several reasons.

Firstly, paintings are considered way more exclusive than photographs. While there are thousands of pictures on your hard drive or cloud storage; how many paintings do you have in your room? Yes, that answers this question. Even as an artist, I strongly believe that the art of paintings can not be challenged by photography.

Is digital oil painting an art form of the future?

Before we rush to dive into the talks of the future, I think understanding the present is much more important. These paintings are created using a reference picture that you click using either your cellphone or the digital camera.

The softcopy of the image serves as the basis on which digital artists create a painting on canvas. This is done using digital tools & artists creating such paintings are called digital artists. Such paintings have become popular in the last decade as people started spending more time on online platforms.

Since these paintings are in digital form, they can be shared on different digital channels such as blogs, social media platforms, emails etc. Today, many netizens and admirers of digital paintings believe that this art form has truly democratized the paintings, by making them affordable and easy to own for common people.

So, what is the future of paintings?

Be it canvas paintings or digital ones, the paintings are here to stay. We have to understand that paintings are not just an art form. There is an industry that is functioning day and night, exploring the finest talent, exploring the best craftwork and connecting it to the art enthusiasts and collectors.

There are billions of dollars that are getting transacted around the art of paintings alone. Last but not the least, there is a community of art curators and experts that is contributing their wisdom, busy interpreting the meanings of paintings and writing books about their subjects.

There is no reason to believe that the paintings will ever go out of fashion.

Digital Vs Canvas Paintings? Which ones are the best?

Let’s try to answer this question with a completely unrelated analogy. Which phone is better — the iPhone or OnePlus? There you have your answer. There is no comparison as both the devices serve different groups of enthusiasts. Similarly, digital & canvas paintings are two different art forms.

We have explained the characteristics and features of both — the canvas and the digital paintings earlier in this article. You may choose to love one over the other based on your liking and that’s completely okay. As an artist, I don’t differentiate between these art forms as both are equally admirable for me.

So to summarise my final thoughts, I feel that be it a canvas or digital painting, diversity in the world of art is the best thing that an art enthusiast can hope for. This richness makes the art more interesting as artists get to experiment and explore different opportunities & the enthusiasts get to appreciate their work, see many styles.

Now that we are talking about appreciating the artwork, would you like to go through some of my work? Well, if you do then all you have to do is to click here and take a look at my past projects. Do let me know how you find it by commenting here