Deckel Maho GildemeisterPhotorealist painting of a brochure

Now let us get to the art bit. Early on in Bert’s exploration of his artistic pursuits, he noticed very little of the photorealistic art was made to be anything that could be described as (in any serious way) – conceptual. There was little beyond the display of the painter’s mastery of the depiction of the surface of things. There were a few exceptions, sometimes the idea, the conceptual value of the painting was there if you looked beyond the visual aspects. But it always took a back seat to the wonderful eye candy that is good photorealist art.

So Bert Ernie set about to create just that – a conceptual photorealist painting. A painting whose subject behind the artwork was more important than the art itself. The idea behind this work was to talk about the genre, the style that has come to be known as photorealism. The term photorealism was coined by Louis K. Meisel, but to Bert, any painting that looks close to what the human eye perceives; with a sharp focus and an accuracy of color and form – is photorealism. He believes that the first photorealist painters were the Seventeenth-century Dutch artists.

What Bert ernie learned in his discovery of how to paint in a photorealistic style was that the single most significant factor was – accuracy. Accuracy of color. Accuracy of form. Accuracy of position. The three A’s. That’s all there was too it. Bert literally discovered the idea of the three A’s from a book on art which had an explanation of the technique from one of the pioneers of the ‘new’ photorealist painters – Malcolm Morley. Bert put that simple idea, as best as he could, into his own development as a photorealist painter. With each small mistake made (and then corrected), each painting completed, Bert Ernie would refine the three A’s.

As Bert got better as a photorealistic painter, he also started to understand that the ‘art world’ had a tendency to either hate or just ignore the photorealist genre of art. Mostly it was seen as a nice visual trick. Critics would occasionally make a compliment to the artist’s skill but then proceed to add that there was not much to leave the viewer to think about. They were mostly right. Those photorealist artists who typically painted in the style of what might best be described as the ‘chrome motorcycle engine crowd’; were leaving the viewer with little more than a few minutes of eye candy.

As a way of making some kind of defense of the art form that Bert had come to love, he set about creating a painting that would speak of the qualities of photorealist art. So he created a painting, and then a series of paintings, which have as their main subject photorealism and its relationship to painting. This particular Deckel Maho Gildemeister painting wasn’t the first. Bert Ernie had painted another piece – Expensive tools before this. However, this artwork, the brochure piece, is the best at achieving its intended goal. It works on so many levels by using metaphors.

This brochure from a company that was then known as Deckel Maho Gildemeister (now DMG MORI) is an advertising piece which essentially brags about how good it is. How it is the best in class, the most powerful, the most accurate. It is the benchmark for all others. And this is pretty much true – this particular manufacturer is what might be best described as the ‘Rolls Royce’ of CNC machine tools. At the time Bert painted this – he believed that the genre of photorealism was the very best; the type most worthy of admiration by the art critics. Bert Ernie doesn’t feel that way anymore. And in the same way, he doesn’t think that by using that same metaphor to boast of his own skills as an artist (which was one of his aims then) is valid. There are just way too many photorealist painters who are extremely skilled for any one person to be described as ‘the best.’

Some of the other ideas Bert tried to get across by using a CNC machine as a metaphor for the photorealistic genre are still valid. He hoped that people could understand that the CNC machine is not only accurate but versatile; it can make just about any shape. A good photorealist painter can duplicate just about any photograph. They can copy a photograph of a person, a still life, or a landscape.
Bert also wanted to imply the power of the photograph. If the photorealist painter decided to copy a powerful image, then they would retain, perhaps even amplify, the source photograph’s power. Very few have done this. The one person who managed to do this was Denis Peterson, whose work of homeless people and slums is incredibly moving.

There is also one more metaphor Bert tried to use in this work. And that is how a great deal of new contemporary realism relies on photorealist painting techniques. He used a mostly unknown (to the average person) machine as a metaphor for the basis of all realist art. The ‘art world’ and critics rarely explain to the average person that much of the modern realist art that they celebrate owes a lot to the photorealist techniques which have been developed since the 1970s. The grid, the projector, the widespread use of photographs as a source; they don’t want you to know that the artists they champion all employ these things. The same things that they decry when it comes to discussing an artist whose focus is mostly on their skill, on technique, on accuracy. It is a bit like how at the start of this little essay he has to explain the incredibly important machine to our modern world. The machine that the average person doesn’t know about. The machine that is the basis of everything else that follows.

If you would like to see the product page for the latest version of this machine then please check out the link here.