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ABOUT
THE ARTIST
"Those who are enamoured of
practice without science are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass
and never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based upon a
sound knowledge of theory, of which perspective is the guide and gateway, and without it
nothing can be done well in any kind of painting."
| Howard David Johnson is a
contemporary visual artist and photographer with a background in |
| the natural sciences and
history. He works in a wide variety of media ranging from traditional |
| oils, pastels and
others to cutting edge digital media. He loves mixing media. This site features |
| examples of
his Realistic Art, including illustration, photography, experimentalism, and fine art
|
|
The various galleries linked to by the icons
above show many examples of His Realistic Art, and are grouped by theme rather than media.
There are also sample illustrations from his upcoming books on Celtic Myth and
Legend and World Myth & Legend. Since boyhood he has passionately copied the old
masters. To create his work, he usually starts with a thematic concept followed by a
rough realistic pencil sketch, then followed by his photography, often traveling to find
suitable scenes and locations and then working in his Photography studio with live models
from his sketches. He then assembles a variety of elements which are realistic and
original. As a boy he dedicated his life to art in 1960. From 1965- 1999 he used
xeroxes and tracings to make his preliminary photo montages. This is patterned after
the manner used by Maxfield Parrish and other 19th century notables. Beginning with a
tracing, he then draws or paints from these complex original Computer Photo Montages. Many
of these are on display on this web and slated for future completion in a variety of
realistic traditional art media. As this happens, the finished work is substituted in the
exhibit. Recently he shot hundreds of aerial photos of clouds at marvelous angles and
perspectives and also looking down on the mighty mountains, rivers, and deserts of the
American west while flying from Texas to Oregon and back for dynamic source material for
realistic flying scenes in upcoming paintings , drawings, and pictures. |
His favourite medium for realistic art is colored pencil because of
the high speed and low expense, and people began expressing difficulty in telling his
colored pencil drawing from photographs in the early 1980's. In the last 35 plus
years he has also mastered Oils, Pastels, Acrylics, Watercolors, Inks, Scratchboard,
Gouache, Photography, and the highly controversial digital media ( Art
Numérica) . As a commercial illustrator Johnson has
not only used the computer to create art but has been involved in the development of
computer imaging software. Working in a realistic style inspired by classic illustrators
HDJ is deeply rooted and grounded in the Greco-Roman artistic tradition, Feeling that with
realistic art, the human form is the ultimate arena for artistic expression. His lifelong
dream came true when his Traditional Realistic Art was exhibited in the British Museum in
London England in 1996. His mixed media has also been displayed in numerous other
ones since such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Having achieved international
acclaim as a traditional visual artist he discovered digital media ( Art
Numérica ) in 1999. Because of his passion for realistic art and photography he
elected to embrace it and joyfully be a part of this historic era in the visual arts as a
21st century realistic visual artist.
Since
1972 when he began his career as a scientific illustrator for the University of Texas he
has earned his living illustrating all kinds of books, magazines, CD covers, and all sorts
of games, greeting cards, calendars, portraits, murals and the like with his contemporary
realistic art... HDJ's Realistic Art has appeared in every major
bookstore chain and fantasy gaming shop in The United States and has been used in
educational texts and magazines all over the world. This site features realistic paintings
& pictures for the twenty-first Century including some oil paintings, as
well as lots of other exciting media such as colored pencil drawings, pastel paintings,
acrylic paintings, gouache paintings, watercolor paintings, and pencil drawings, and also
featuring studio, field, & aerial photography, digital painting and
photo-montage and all these media mixed in an assortment of experimental
combinations...Working in a wide variety of media to create his realistic art he offers
his customers a host of payment and product options. He delivers the rights to these
custom made copyright free illustrations and old fashioned customer service when he does
work-for-hire. He loves to paint custom oil paintings and accepts commissions with down
payments starting at one thousand dollars. On his existing works his low cost license
offers start at only 100 dollars.
|
Bonus Section:
Personal Opinion Essays on Realistic Art
yesterday and today by the artist.
In addition to his mastery of
traditional media, Howard David Johnson now combines drawing, painting,
photography, and digital media with more than thirty years of experience in these fields
to create his Realistic Art Numérica in 21st century paintings and
pictures.
Did you know the Greek word
"Photography" means "Painting with Light"? Today with the advent of
computers it truly lives up to it's name. Due to developments in Art and Technology, a
broader definition of painting is needed than that which is found in common usage.
Announcing Art
Numérica -an exciting merger of traditional visual art and cutting edge
technology... a new art form for the twenty- first century... Art Numéricais not
limited to realistic art but also offers limitless horizons for everything from cartoons
to abstractions.
It is the most dramatic
development in the visual arts since the Renaissance. In the words of Al Jolson in the
movie world's first talking picture" You ain't seen nothin' yet!"
Essay One: "THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME..."
(A Brief essay
dealing with attitudes toward Traditional Realistic Paintings, Pastels, Colored Pencils
and Art Numérica ) |
"Painting, in art, the
action of laying colour on a surface, or the representation of objects by this means.
Considered one of the fine arts"
~Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"Painting. noun. 1.) The act
or employment of laying on colors or paints. 2.) The art of forming figures or objects in
colors on canvas or any other surface, or the art of representing to the eye by means of
figures and colors any object; the work of an illustrator or painter. 3.) A picture; a
likeness or resemblance in shape or colors. 4.) Colors laid on. 5.) Delineation that
raises a vivid image in the mind; as in word painting.
~ Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
of the English Language
 Pastel, Acrylics, and Colored Pencils combined |
Snobbism in the arts is nothing new. Some people will tell
you that oils are the only valid medium for realistic paintings. That Colored Pencil,
Digital, and other Realistic Painting and Drawing Media are not valid for
"real" art. Young artists, Don't let them bother you. Their forerunners used to
condemn Pastels before they gained acceptance and called them "crayons" when
Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752) invented them. Mercilessly disrespectful
art critics of the time could not stop the Experimentalists no matter how
viciously they
attacked and derided them. "Crayon-painting" as it was called in England was
practiced early on by persecuted pioneers in Switzerland and many other nations. What a
debt we owe to these master artists who refused to knuckle under to the pressure of those
short-sighted critics during those historic and experimental times. It took until 1870
with the founding of the "Societe` Des Pastellistes" in France that respect
came at last to these heroic & immortal visual artists. |
In England the liberation of the Pastellists from slight regard and
undeserved disrespect came with the first exhibition of "The Pastel Society" at
the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880. Pastel Painters like Mary Cassat and others from
America and other nations forever silenced the snobs with their masterworks and
gained recognition at long last for Thiele's invention as a valid art medium. I am
persuaded that history will repeat itself. Like Pastels, I believe these wonderful
new colored pencils and even Digital Realistic Art Media will one day
receive the
recognition they deserve as powerful mediums of artistic expression just as pastel
paintings did. What is your definition of art? Have you thought about it?
Mine is: "anything that
makes you feel or think."
Consider
dancing... it can be a little skip in the step or rise to the level of the incomparable
Russian Ballet. Did you know that just the materials alone for a single oil painting cost
up to a thousand dollars these days? Even paying the artist less than minimum wage no one
but the super rich can afford them anymore. Something's got to give. Realistic paintings
in oil have been highly prized for centuries and the appeal and following of realistic art
is undiminished to this day. Oil paintings featuring Abstract Art and Realistic Art are
generally the most treasured form of all the visual art media and with good reason. But
snobbish art critics favoring abstract art have declared that realistic
paintings, or illustrations are not art for a century. With so many
representationalist paintings by so many immortal master artists hanging in the
Louvre, the Hermitage, and the British Museum and others I think the disrespect for
realistic illustrators that dominated the 20th century is academically ridiculous as well
as vain and intolerant, insisting theirs is the only valid opinion. What is your
definition of Art? I believe almost any form of human expression can be raised to the
level of "high art" especially visual art and Realistic illustration... |
The detail reveals Realistic
art and abstract art combined |
By my own definition of art, which is: "anything that makes you feel or
think" most abstract paintings are not "real art" to me personally,
because abstract paintings usually neither make me feel or think, usually focusing
obsessively on technique and avoiding any coherent content. I usually draw a complete
blank mentally and emotionally when I look at them. In 1979 the Houston Metropolitan
Museum of Art displayed a triptych of 3 giant paintings they paid fifty thousand
dollars for- three blank white canvasses entitled "untitled". Then there
was "The incredible new artistic Genius" with an I.Q. of 62
...Congo the chimpanzee
with his gala New York art exhibition...an elaborate prank played on the Snobbish American
Art critics about a generation ago by research scientists in the field of primatology.
Imagine how upset they were when he created one of his "ingenious masterpieces"
right before their eyes.
( My Source for this is the Time Life
Science Library volume entitled "The Primates". ) |
Art education has been almost completely removed from American
Schools as a result of generations of this kind of fabulous nonsense contributing to
America's cultural illiteracy crisis. Now, the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo,
and other notables are being removed from school libraries. After generations of
this, most American college graduates today cannot name even one living visual artist,
abstract or realistic.
There is no way that mandating
more math, requiring more reading, or scheduling more science will replace what we have
lost as a culture.
What is your definition of Art?
~HDJ
***** |
| Note:
Abstract Paintings by Congo the Chimpanzee outsold Warhol and Renoir by
over 25,000 dollars in June 2005 at a London art auction. Born in 1954,
Congo created more than 400 drawings and paintings between the ages of two
and four. He died in 1964 of tuberculosis. There is no precedent for this
kind of sale. |
Essay Two : The Rebirth
of Realism
More thoughts on realistic art
yesterday and today by the artist
Art History
has entered a new era with the birth of Art Numérica, or digital
art media in the 21st century. Artists never stop exploring with mediums. Artists have
been developing techniques, experimenting with different tools since at least twenty- five
thousand years ago, when the first artist picked up a charred stick and scratched a
picture out on the wall of his cave. You'd think everything would have been tried by now,
but it hasn't. Exploring new mediums this very day is just as exciting, just as full of
freshness and newness as it ever was.
Art
Numérica: Photography, Drawing, Painting and Digital Art combined |
The creation
of Realistic art has been the goal of most artists since the dawn of civilization.
Realistic art was the pride of ancient Greece. The world's greatest museums are full of
realistic art. Realistic art WAS art until the advent of the abstract expressionist
movement in the twentieth century. The coming of the camera in the nineteenth century
changed realistic art forever. Suddenly, realistic art was not the only way to create
realism in portraits and historical records. The work of the realistic artist was suddenly
made into an expensive luxury. The political power of the realistic artist was broken and
they were no longer an indispensable member of society. Hostility to the
creators of realistic art goes back to ancient times and the jealousy of advisers to the
Pharaohs and others who were not able to spend as much time with their rulers as their
portraitists. Although with the aid of photographs, realistic art achieved
levels of excellence undreamed of, the realistic art movement of the late nineteenth
century was short. |
| None
of these people earning their living creating realistic art could compete with the speed
and low cost of photographic portraiture. Determined to survive, great realistic
artists like Pablo Picasso ingeniously turned inward and began to explore things that could
not be photographed in a new school of art, abstract expressionism. The day of the fine
art superstars had arrived. It was now largely just a hobby to abstract and realistic
artists alike. Illustration, because of advances in printing technology
enabled an elite
few to earn a living with their realistic art. These illustrators working in realistic art
media were condemned and ridiculed in much the same way Europe's great symphonic
composers were condemned for working in motion pictures after fleeing the nazis during
World War Two. The rift between realistic and abstract art grew wider and wider. The
universities and key media usually sided with the abstract camp and derided anyone working
in any realistic art media declaring boldly that realistic art was not "real"
art. Immortal giants of realistic art such as Maxfield Parrish were mistreated their
entire lives. They were accused of selling out for creating beautiful pieces of realistic
fine art to earn a living. The attitude that the true artist must suffer and starve and
die in poverty became a rule. There were the Abstract art superstars, the professional
realistic illustrators, and the hobbyists who, although cut off from gainful employment
and social influence still recognized their artistic gifts as a calling rather than a
profession. |
Early abstract art masters proved themselves as realistic
artists before delving into realms of the intangible. They had to do this at that time to
prove themselves because of the challenges they faced from the establishment for going
against the status quo. In the latter part of the 20th century, realistic artists like HDJ
were challenged to do abstract art to prove themselves as shown in the example above
(Deirdre of the sorrows). Later realistic art training was abandoned in most schools and
things like splattering paint in fits of rage were deemed more than enough. By the
end of the 20th century something as destructive and ridiculous as nailing a pack of
cigarettes to a shoe was considered fine art but not realistic paintings. Fashions in art
have often been as silly as fashions in ladies hats. As the century drew to a close,
many people had had enough. The realistic revolt was at hand. The rebirth of realism was
fueled by the advent of the digital era. Now, for the first time in almost two centuries,
an artist or illustrator could earn a decent living again with his realistic art. This is
historic. Realistic art is not going to go away, especially now that photography has
truly merged with traditional realistic visual art. Photography comes from the Greek words
meaning "painting with light". Now with the advent of digital media the
capability of realistic art has become almost limitless, truly, "painting with
light". The merger of all the world's art forms to realize the potential of motion
pictures has come now to still realistic art media. This website for example, combines
music, prose, poetry, photography and traditional realistic art media to create an
experience beyond merely looking at realistic paintings.
The twenty- first century is already seeing a new renaissance in the arts
because of the world wide web. There has never been anything like it. Abstract art,
computer art, photographic art, and realistic art are continuing to be separate schools of
art but are also blending to create exciting new horizons. Although Digital art does offer
completely new horizons to the artist in the 21st century it does not mean the end of our
time honored art traditions. Instead, it offers additional ways to keep these traditions
and schools of thought fresh and alive. ~ HDJ
*****
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- 2012
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