nrron t1_iye8woz wrote on November 30, 2022 at 7:16 PM

Photographs. In the past if you wanted a portrait you needed to sit with an artist and wait for them to paint it. That limited the amount of time an artist had to get everything exactly right because the subject can’t sit still forever waiting to be painted.

Now you can take a high quality photograph and the artist can work from that taking as much time as is necessary.

Also we have much better equipment for drawing painting portraits.

ProstMeister t1_iyejt4f wrote on November 30, 2022 at 8:26 PM

Consider also that in former times, rules and techniques on how to properly render perspectives were unknown. Bringing a 3D scene to a 2D drawing is not so trivial.

More on that topic: http://www.essentialvermeer.com/technique/perspective/history.html#:~:text=In%20its%20mathematical%20form%2C%20linear,De%20pictura%20%5BOn%20Painting%5D

linxi1 t1_iyeafw4 wrote on November 30, 2022 at 7:26 PM

As an artist I can add that painting from life or copying a photo are two different skills.

And I don’t think the materials matter that much in this instance, many people nowadays paint with terrible tools lol, mostly it’s just that it’s not noticeable when represented via digital media such as a screen :D