I just saw a full episode of his show. The fuck? I’m not a painter but I’ve seen my mom paint all my life.
This motherfucker just did in 15 minutes what would take her weeks. Like???
And he did it while talking, in clean fucking strokes. So fucking fast. I saw a literal masterpiece being created in fifteen minutes from nothing. From nothing. It was a blank fucking canvas, man.
I knew of Bob Ross, but I’d never actually seen him paint. Goddamn. How did actual artists react to him? Like, how do you not feel just thoroughly outclassed.
All while this mofo is saying how easy all that he’s doing is while I know for a fact how hard it is. Like, is he just gaslighting everyone?
I see this as the big problem. I don’t think there is anything wrong with not seeking to significantly advance one’s personal artistic skill or vision beyond a plateau, but Ross did contribute to the current orthodoxy of photorealism being the highest aspiration of an artist. Unintentionally of course, but the compound effect is there. As a hobbyist artist, I often struggle with trying to escape this mindset thanks to the prevailing cultural pressure that comes from corporate and profit driven motives to create, but I can’t personally fault a Bob Ross type for enjoying remaining in certain niches (he certainly had more technical skill than I, so I figure I shouldn’t judge on that aspect at least.)
Not every artist has the dedication or inclination to create works like Michelangelo or Picasso and that’s alright IMO, but we hate to see something like this happen lol
I mostly do miniature painting and it’s obnoxious that we’re going through the motions of the last 500 years with no self-awareness as other miniature painters encounter problems we’ve already solved. There’s this mindset of needing to make everything as realistic as possible and miniature painters are finding out that has limits. “Blanchitsu” or “grimdark” or “INQ28” or whatever you want to call it, is miniaturists just now figuring out Baroque and Expressionism…you know…the things that influenced John Blanche. Maybe we’ll figure out Rococo and Mannerism were already a thing within the next 25 years lmao?
The major push behind it is the corporate and profit driven motivators. Hyper-realistic painting is what appeals to non-artists and the major events around miniature painting are catering to those people. Emperor forbid we see something cool entered into Crystal Brush or Golden Demon like this:
Or these:
Having to start learning from scratch as an atomized individual stuck behind tool & material prices, free time, isolation etc. sets makes that process of learning to represent one’s imagination on the medium take so much longer and feel so much more stressful than it should.
It’s actually funny; what you said is completely accurate - so many of the techniques that are artificially by medium, community, initial costs, are really just the same principles applied across mediums. The most recent progress I’ve made in improving my digital 2d technique were from applying painting methods I learned while mini painting
I had so much trouble with illumination, shadow, and reflectivity before trying different mediums and applying techniques both ways. Realism is absolutely fine to pursue, I just wish more people had the time & opportunity to express themselves without sacrifice & worry about precarity and the omnipresent pressure of profit motive 😔