Painters of the past who painted from life.

Woe is me, this is my blog, dammit! I really hate paintings done from photographs. There I said it. It is making everybody's work look alike. We realists are all trying so damn hard to make it look real (like the photograph) we are forgetting that we are making a painting. And as Rhett Butler said, "Frankly, my dear I don't give a damn" if it is done. I really don't care if you do it. It makes those who do try to work from life paintings so much rarer and more precious.From the Art Renewal site."El Greco's work is typically modern, and from it the portrait painter, J. S. Sargent, claims to have learnt more than from that of any other artist. It immortalizes the character of the people amongst whom he dwelt, and he may be considered as the initiator of truth and realism in art, a precursor and inspirer of Velázquez."Below are paintings that exhibit all the qualities that are lost in today's portraiture- profundity and sensitivity (Rembrandt, El Greco), sumptuous beauties that don't look like magazine glossies ( Goya, Botticelli, El Greco' Largilliere, Manet), tenderness and pathos without treacle (Watteau, Gainsborough) and finally characterizations no standard run of the mill (most of todays) contemporary portrait artists would dare to make- this peeved couple from Gainsborough. No- one-paints portraits anywhere near as good as the ones below today, no-one!