Hyperrealism and Illusion
An essay by Jacques Bodin
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Jacques Bodin, “Rebirth of Hyperrealisms”, 2023, 100×100 cm (39×39 ins), oil on canvas
© Jacques Bodin, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
While hyperrealism was the subject of numerous publications when it burst onto the scene in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, it subsequently became practically impossible to find an article, a review or a book dealing with the subject taking a global approach.
It appeared to have been a temporary movement, forgotten as quickly as it lasted. However, most of the painters who initiated this movement continued, enriched and often diversified their work, relayed by one and then two generations of new artists. It therefore seemed essential, 40 years after its appearance, to write theoretical texts on this movement again. The aim of this article is to highlight the illusionist aspect of hyperrealism.
The hyperrealist illusion
Man’s relationship with reality is never fixed. It constantly escapes any influence whatsoever because if man makes reality, reality in turn makes man. If we place ourselves in the framework of the evolution of artistic creation, hyperrealism represents one of its moments of rupture, because it devoted what yesterday was suspect or even uninteresting because artistic work had for some years turned its back on painting and, for a long time, on figuration.
But the formal repetitions of the period encompassing the 1950s and 1960s contained the seeds of the current fascination for reproducing reality as practiced by the hyperrealists. We could count them as virtuosos because they achieved such perfection that we came to confuse their paintings with photographs. Also some argue that these painters would present only a simple cold observation of their environment, without subjective analysis.
Ronald Bowen, “Volet Bleu Turquoise”
(Turquoise Blue Shutter), 2022, 130×97 cm (51×38 ins), oil on canvas
© Ronald Bowen, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
However, the world of art has always sought to surprise and amaze. And hyperrealism pushes the limits of
human perception to the point of blurring the line between reality and illusion. By combining exceptional
technical mastery and a deep understanding of visual psychology, hyperrealism invites us to rethink our relationship with reality.
Any representation of reality is a simulacrum. This is why reproduced reality is a fiction. When a painter projects a photo onto a canvas and then paints from the projected photo, he ultimately translates only the fiction of the reality that he has experienced, thought about and worked on.
The hyperrealist painting thus becomes the reality of this fiction since it unambiguously translates the entire process of capturing this reality, from its perception to its materialized restitution.​​
Luis Perez, “Millennium Park, 7:11am”, 2020, 140×65 cm, (55×26 ins), acrylic on canvas
© Luis Perez, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
Hyperreality, media and illusion
Photographic images, films, series, social media, television are as important as real phenomena. They modify our perception of real phenomena. They modify our perception of reality. Hyperrealists do not only seek to paint as realistically as possible from a photo but to redefine painting in its relationship with the photo, creating a new source of visual information.
Two circuits constantly cross, that of the photo and that of the subjects represented. Because photography
plays the role of interceptor. It sets a trap in which reality freezes. Then the object is reanimated by the painter, it finds its initial breath, but the mathematical equation between reality and fiction is broken.
To claim that hyperrealist painting is content to reproduce reality is a misinterpretation since the image often relegates reality to the background.
Christoph Eberle, “Lamb”, 2015, 100×100 cm (39×39 ins), oil on canvas
© Christoph Eberle, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
When hyperrealism plays with our emotions
Hyperrealism uses illusion to push the viewer to question what he sees, both as a work of art and as an experience of reality itself. By exploiting elements such as light, texture and perspective, artists are able to create images that challenge the viewer’s perception. The aim is not only to reproduce reality, but also to
evoke emotions and thoughts about the nature of perception and representation.
Some artists use this emotion to provoke deep reflections. Ronald Bowen, for example, creates paintings of ordinary objects – a shutter, a chair, a table bathed in light. But their stillness, their silence impose a striking contrast with our hectic lives. They remind us of the invisible, those we pass by without seeing.
Every detail, every shadow and texture in a hyperrealist painting screams truth, and yet it is only an illusion. This duality between what is seen and what is real awakens a tumult of emotions – wonder, doubt, perhaps even a little vertigo. Hyperrealism, by playing with our perceptions, does much more than deceive us: it connects us to deeply human truths.
The psychological impact of hyperrealist illusion
Looking at a hyperrealist work is like being trapped in an illusion. Viewers often wonder if what they see is real or imaginary. This feeling of wonder is often accompanied by a slight disorientation, where our minds try to reconcile what our eyes perceive with what we know to be true.
On the other hand, through the illusionistic character of these meticulous representations of the smallest
details of a reflection or of each hair of a hairstyle, a fascinating and frightening madness emerges.
Also, although it is often considered cold and devoid of any commitment, hyperrealism presents a heroic
character: by deliberately choosing to create slowly what some media can achieve instantly and effortlessly, it affirms the value of human effort.
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Sharp focus, gigantic scale and illusion
Another major characteristic of hyperrealism is the frequent close-up and very detailed representation of
a part of a whole (sharp focus).
The excessive enlargement of a subject is another form of abstraction: by separating it from ordinary reality it gives it a new identity (gigantic scale).
The painters thus strive to make various forms appear drawn from the depths of the image, and one is struck by the impression that, correlatively, objects and familiar scenes become “miniatures of the world”. This characteristic maintains the illusionist aspect of hyperrealism.
Emanuele Dasciano, “The Father does not want a divorce with Die Mutter. This is my
Father”, 2013, 80×65 cm (32×26 ins), charcoal and graphite on paper
© Emanuele Dasciano, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
Hyperrealistic techniques and illusion
To apply his power, the hyperrealist artist needs these artificial extensions of the limbs that are the brush, the airbrush, now complicated by all this prosthesis that is the photographic camera, the projection device, the computer, artificial intelligence, all of which always consist, in any case, in doubling, prolonging or projecting an image of oneself towards the world, that is to say, of establishing a bridge between the organism and the image of an illusion.
The Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary
American art historian Hal Foster, who applied Jacques Lacan’s tripartite psychoanalytic division of reality –
the real, the symbolic, and the imaginary – in his book The Return of the Real – considers hyperrealism to
be engaged in a hyperbolic quest for appearances that aims to mask a repressed reality. The real, as
apprehended from this psychic perspective, is a zone of darkness at the heart of existence that we wish to avoid and that cannot be represented.
According to Foster, through the anxiety expressed by its interest in shiny, reflective surfaces, hyperrealism expresses what it seeks to conceal.
Sharon Moody, “‘The Scorpion!’ The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #145, June 1975”, 41×41cm (16×16 ins), oil on panel
© Sharon Moody, 2025, image courtesy of the artist
The power of perfect illusion
Hyperrealist artists push the boundaries of technique to create works that challenge us. Whether it’s a
portrait by Emanuele Dasciano, capturing the fragility of existence in a wrinkled face, or a painting by Richard Estes, translating the complexity of the urban world, each piece draws us into a silent dialogue.
Why is this effect so powerful? Because illusion breaks our visual routine. It interrupts our tendency to see without really looking. A painting that looks like a photo forces our mind to stop, to question: Is this real? Why am I troubled?
This tension between perception and reality awakens a unique emotion, a mixture of fascination and vulnerability.
