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)

Na Europa, o interesse pela figuração denominou-se deNova Figuração ou NovoRealismo Europeu, estando presente em grupos e artistasIndividuais de característicasmuito diferentes.Nele podem-se integrar oespanhol López Garcia, comTemáticas muito variadas.Na Inglaterra destaca-se afigura de Lucien Freud, pelotratamento realista da figurahumana com uma enorme carga psicológica e analítica.

Lucian Freud, (British, b. Berlin 1922), Interior in Paddington, 1951, o/c, 60” x 45”

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.”

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

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

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

De origem irlandesa FrancisBacon teve como assunto a Figura humana, representada de forma fragmentada,metamorfoseada e distorcidaem relação ao original. A suatécnica expressionista, construída a partir de materialfotográfico, utilizou umalinguagem informalista aliadaa cores, por vezes, puras, eaplicadas com uma pinceladaactiva, sinâmica e forte que não perseguia a objectividade.É por isso considerado um “realista surreal”.

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.

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

Francis Bacon (1909-1992)

Isobel

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

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

(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

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