Paintings - Virtual (Re)Construction

After an introduction to Cinema 4D, a 3D modelling and rendering program, the students were asked to develop a series of non-photorealistic images, the aesthetics and style of which were to lean more towards the characteristics of painting. To this end, a selection of well-known paintings from the last century, in different styles, served as a basis and reference. These two-dimensional images, characterised by fields and lines, were to be interpreted spatially, reproduced in a virtual three-dimensional model and finally output as computer-calculated images. The participants thus analysed the paintings’ spatial arrangement of objects and their principles of perspective (including several inconsistencies and anomalies found in individual example paintings), as well as the ways in which the analogue contours and surface textures were depicted and how these came across. The stylistic features of the individual painted works were to be transferred to the 3D models as coherently as possible and, via virtual lighting and camera, finally presented as two-dimensional images once again in computer-generated renderings. In addition to teaching 3D graphics via use of the program Cinema 4D as an example, the aim was to show the students that computer-based visual processes can also be used to devise visual strategies and aesthetics that go beyond striving to implement photographic representation as precisely as possible.