THE ART OF SOLITUDE
THE WEEK|April 26, 2020
How a clutch of artists down the ages has depicted isolation
ANJULY MATHAI
THE ART OF SOLITUDE

American artist Richard Estes, 87, considered to be one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the 1960s, painted Madison Square on a “vacant and quiet Sunday morning” in 1994. The place is empty except for a couple of shadowy figures crossing the road; their presence, ironically, amplifies the absence of others. Incidentally, Estes started out in Madison Square as an illustrator of ad campaigns in the 1960s, paid to “realistically misrepresent reality”. In a way, that is what he did later in his career as well, as an artist. He created hyper-realistic cityscapes with photographic precision. Except that his paintings have a depth and detailing that a photograph could never capture.

This story is from the April 26, 2020 edition of THE WEEK.

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This story is from the April 26, 2020 edition of THE WEEK.

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