The history of making photo realistic images (I'd like to use the term "photo" despite the non-existence of cameras back then), started in the Renaissance, with Leonardo da Vinci being probably the most prominent painter in this area. Before the Renaissance, most painting was mostly representative or religious and stylized (mannerism). Leonardo was an early scientist, constantly exploring the effect and physics of light. He was in fact more interested to explore these subjects in his paintings, than to please his clients who commissioned them. Almost at the same time, the Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck was painting his extremely detailed and realistic portraits at Philip The Good's court, and Albrecht Durer drew his book on human anatomy and painted his famous realistic self portrait in Germany. Then, in the 1600s, there was a bunch of painters aiming for photo realism, most notably Vermeer, De La Tour, Velazquez (my favorite), David, Courbet, Millet, Gericault, Delacroix, and Corot. Copying some of these masters' original paintings in my teenage years has thaught me a great deal on how to really look and see as a painter and translate this to the canvas and screen.
Here is a link to the Web Gallery of Art, with high res images of paintings from an impressive, searchable database. There you will find works of many of the masters mentioned above.
Picture: Diego de Silva y Velazquez' self portrait
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