
War Stories: A Year and a Half of Instapainting - chrischen
https://medium.com/backchannel/inside-the-fine-art-factories-of-china-8e3df7faba62
======
rdancer
The paintings are bad. Really, really bad. If you take for example the
football photography turned into a painting, from the article[1], you can see
even at that level of detail, that the painting is amateurish, lacks detail,
and looks worse than the photograph. Their reproductions of famous paintings
are even more obviously inadequate. Which is a shame, because unlike its
execution, the idea itself is very good. I am disappointed that I cannot buy
myself a nice reproduction of a famous painting.

[1]
[https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/1400/1*EqUIC15cRBw...](https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/1400/1*EqUIC15cRBwZygjZa9hkzg.jpeg)

~~~
chrischen
It's meant to look like a painting, not a photo. That being said, we're
upfront about the paintings. The gallery are actual paintings directly
uploaded by the artists, from actual orders. We don't retouch the samples or
anything.

You either like what you see there or you don't, and we just sell what they
offer.

~~~
rdancer
I wanted to get a reproduction of "Hip hip hurra!" by Peder Severin Krøyer,
few months ago. This is the original[1], and this is what China, in all
seriousness, offfers[2]. Is it possible to get excellent quality
reproductions, like the ones one sees in the caper movies, and how much would
they cost?

[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/PS_Kr%C3...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/PS_Kr%C3%B8yer_-
_Hip_hip_hurra!_Kunstnerfest_p%C3%A5_Skagen_1888.jpg) [2] [http://www.fineart-
china.com/htmlimg/image-64517.html](http://www.fineart-
china.com/htmlimg/image-64517.html)

------
bambax
The article was a great read and very informative.

Turning to instapainting.com was a big letdown, though: the gallery is,
frankly, not very exciting (and one figures that the examples shown are among
the best).

In the "custom abstract oil painting" section there's one artist that I found
interesting, named Yooseon Choi
([https://prods.imgix.net/e0c87263c21b1921c4d9fc9f1b65bf5597f3...](https://prods.imgix.net/e0c87263c21b1921c4d9fc9f1b65bf5597f38076.jpg?w=600&h=600)).

(Also, canvas sizes are described in inches only, which effectively chases
away non-American buyers; if you're shipping from China why not target an
international audience?)

~~~
chrischen
We simply pass on what the artists offer, both from China, as well as creative
artists in the US.

------
bootload
_" Moving forward, we look to integrate more technology and hardware (like our
painting robot, or advanced machine learning) directly into the actual
painting process."_

The Turing test of robot painting in this instance: "would I pay the same
amount if the artwork was done by a robot?"

~~~
chrischen
The reason why American artists deride something like "photo to painting"
(even though Tony Soprano from the Sopranos and others commission portraits
all the time), is that they don't see it as creating art. And that's mostly
true. People are getting photos turned to art for the effect. Any deviation
from the photo right now is due to artist error, and not creative
interpretation.

Adding technology to the mix means more accurate renditions, and I don't think
people would care because they're getting it so that it doesn't look like a
flat canvas print.

