Photorealism
Related: photography - realism
Tourists (1970) - Duane Hanson [Google gallery]
Vanitasstilleven met nautilusbeker en pomander aan een gouden ketting (1636) - Pieter Claesz
Even more than than the works by Vermeer, this painting illustrates the extraordinary skills of 17th century 'photographic' painters.
Photorealism
Photorealism is the genre of resembling a photograph, generally in a hyperrealistic motif. In art, the term is primarily applied to paintings from the photorealism art movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorealism [Sept 2005]
Vermeer and photographic realism
The Little Street (1657-1658) - Jan Vermeer
I'm certainly not the first to notice the almost photographic realism of Vermeer's work but it was Jason Streed who first clued me in on one of the missing pieces in my understanding about this. Vermeer's paintings are so photo-realistic because in a very real sense they actually are photographs. --http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2004/04/03-0001.html [May 2006]
Also check this Roman ruins post by laputanlogic.com.
See also: 1600s - 1650s - realism - photography
Photorealism as similacrum
Fredric Jameson uses the example of photorealism to describe simulacra. The painting is a copy of a photograph, not of reality. The photograph itself is a copy of the original. Therefore, the painting is a copy of a copy. Other art forms that play with simulacra include Pop art, Trompe l'oeil, Italian neo-Realism and the French New Wave. Jean Baudrillard puts forth God as an example. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacrum [Sept 2005]
See also: hyperreality - copy - self-referentiality - similacrum - photography