Hyper-Realism emerged in the United States in the late 1960s and continued through the 1970s as a movement in the visual arts of painting and sculpture that aimed for a photographic approach to reality in a colder and more impersonal style. Key artists included Andrey Flack, Chuck Close, Robert Cottingham, Don Eddy, Grant Wood and John Salt. In Europe, a related movement called New Figuration or New European Realism featured both group and individual artists with different characteristics, including the Spanish artist Lopez Garcia and the English artist Lucian Freud, known for his realistic yet psychologically analytical depictions of the human figure. The Irish-born artist Francis Bacon used a fragmented and distorted expressionist technique informed by photography

1. Hiper-Realismo e Nova Figuração

2. Nascido no EUA, no final dos anos 60 e prolongando-se pela década de 70 do séc. XX, o Hiper-Realismo abrangeu as artes plásticas – pintura e escultura – e propôs uma visão fotográfica de aproximação à Realidade. Constituiu uma expressão artística mais fria e impessoal, onde não estão patentes as acções ou emoções do artista. Andrey Flack, Chuck Close, Robert Cottingham, Don Eddy, Grant Wood e John Salt foram alguns dos artistas deste movimento. Title : Drug Store, Detroit Artist : Robert Frank Date : 1955 Source/ Museum : Robert Frank, from The Americans . Courtesy of the Pace McGill Gallery, New York Medium : gelatin silver print Size : 11 x 14" (27.9 x 35.5 cm)

3. Na Europa, o interesse pela figuração denominou-se de Nova Figuração ou Novo Realismo Europeu , estando presente em grupos e artistas Individuais de características muito diferentes. Nele podem-se integrar o espanhol López Garcia , com Temáticas muito variadas. Na Inglaterra destaca-se a figura de Lucien Freud , pelo tratamento realista da figura humana com uma enorme carga psicológica e analítica. Lucian Freud , (British, b. Berlin 1922), Interior in Paddington , 1951, o/c, 60” x 45”

4. Freud , Girl With a White Dog , 1951-52; o/c, 30 x 40”; Tate Gallery, London “I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.”

5. Freud , Naked Girl Asleep , 1968, o/c, 22 x 22in (right) Man Posing , ink on paper, 1984

6. Freud , Reflection (Self-Portrait), 1985, Oil on canvas, 22 x 21 in (right) Sigmund Freud (grandfather)

7. Lucian Freud , Naked Man; Back View , 1992-1992

8. De origem irlandesa Francis Bacon teve como assunto a Figura humana, representada de forma fragmentada, metamorfoseada e distorcida em relação ao original. A sua técnica expressionista, construída a partir de material fotográfico, utilizou uma linguagem informalista aliada a cores, por vezes, puras, e aplicadas com uma pincelada activa, sinâmica e forte que não perseguia a objectividade. É por isso considerado um “ realista surreal”.

17. Francis Bacon 1909-1992 FIGURE STUDY II (STUDY FOR THE MAGDELEN) 1945-1946 The extraordinary sexless figure is bent low, an umbrella shielding her face. Only the screaming mouth is revealed. We do not know the reason for her pain, although the subtitle links her with the Crucifixion. The acuteness of the figure’s torment is sharpened by the vivid orange background. This was painted at the end of the war as the horrors of the Holocaust were first being revealed. Bacon used an unusual combination of influences to create his grotesque figure: a book on mouth diseases and the screaming face from Sergei Eisenstein’s film The Battleship Potemkin both played a part. ‘I did hope one day to make the best painting of the human cry,’ he said, and this was the first of many that focused on a screaming, tortured face.

18. Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Self Portrait Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud

20. Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Isobel

21. Francis Bacon, Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 5 x 4 ft, 1953 (right top) source: Velazquez , Pope Innocent X, 1650; (right below) a still from Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 The Battleship Potemkin, Odessa steps sequence

23. Francis Bacon , Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion , 1944, oil and pastel on canvas, triptych on wood fiberboard, each 37 x 29 inches. The crucifixion was for Bacon a symbol of humanity’s sadism. (lower right) crucial source: Picasso , On the Beach (La Baignade), 1937. Picasso encouraged Bacon and bought his work early on. Aeschylus’ The Eumenides : The Furies , the hidden side of the human psyche, with Orestes

24. (left) Francis Bacon , Three Studies of figures on Beds , 1972, oil and pastel on canvas, triptych, each panel 6’6” x 4’ 10” (right) source: Eadweard Muybridge , photograph from The Human Figure in Motion , 1887

25. No contexto do Novo Realismo Europeu pode ainda ser integrada a obra da pintora portuguesa Paula Rego .