The merit of purely commercial art has long divided the art community. There’s something about commercial art which fascinates and absorbs me, sometimes in a way that art created for more personal reasons never can. In this video I use Photoshop to colourise this old advertising picture while talking about my thoughts on my process and the picture more generally.
This model in this photograph is likely posing for a reference image, possibly for an advertisement for soap, perfume or some other product which would later be illustrated by a painter or some other type of graphic artist. There’s something quite interesting to me about the fact that I’m using reference images to colour this photograph of a reference image. If you'd like to see the other images from this session, they can be found here:
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I really love the longevity of commercial art, long after the commercial side of it has stopped being relevant. People today put up reproduction prints of advertising pictures in their house as art, even if they’ve never heard of the long gone product. In much the same way that anything will become historical and antique over time I think anything that is purely commercial will eventually become purely art.
My personal favourite example of this, as I mention in the video, is the old advertising signs you see faded on the sides of buildings. I often see one while on the train which advertises old gramophones and radio systems. The shop this advert was painted on the side of has long since been converted into a house. The advertised equipment is also long defunct, yet the advert still dutifully tries to sell people on the 1920’s audio revolution, 100 years later!
What do you think of commercial art? Please let me know in the comments. :)
To see colourised pictures, including this one, you can follow me at the following:
/ jbcolourisation
/ jbcolourisation
/ jbcolourisation
4 окт 2024
