It’s only a matter of time until artists painted the web as if the web itself were a still life or portrait (a website would be a portrait).  One artist that has been doing this for a while is Valéry Grancher. The work of   has been compared to the large desktop paintings of Olah Perhson by Google Blogoscoped.

Here’s a portrait of Yahoo’s Home page as it was in 2005, last year.

Here’s a portrait by Grancher of the Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art.

Valéry Grancher also paints portraits of Brands; ie: here’s a portrait of Burberry (below)

 And not to be forgotten, Valéry Grancher also has painted documents or “news stories” such as Found sculpture on mars January 11 2005″ 

 

 And another called Somewhere Sometimes”   of the Saturn Moon Titan (I remember that – a series of photos were taken by the Space Probe Cassini.

I honestly think that what has happened here needed to happen – someone needs to paint the internet.  On the other hand, the paintings really fall into being “illustrative”.   To my point of view, illustrating an idea, event, news story, website and Brand are perhaps, a little too literal.   I like all the paintings, and I like how they are painted – but I’m not sure the paintings of websites add anything more than what I’d get by looking at the website.

For example, you paint a portrait of someone and look for some insight about the person, and that makes the painting interesting.  You can also take a photo of the same person and that photo illustrates what your seeing when you take the picture.   But I’m looking for more than that – I’d want the painting of a site to be a comment – to show me something beyond what looking at the site gives me – something that’s in the mind of the artist.

And the Space pictures sorta do that – but again, in an illustrative way (do you call a poem over a Saturnian Moon – something that’s in the mind of the Artist?  I do, because that poem is in Valéry Grancher’s mind – but it’s just a poem superimposed over the a painting of a picture of rocks – and the poem does not add anything to the painting as far as I can tell.

So….while I think painting the web is good – I’m calling for something beyond illustrating the web – give me insight instead.  Show me, in the painting of Burberry, what is unique about Burberry (it is a distinctive brand, after all).  For all I know, that Burberry canvas could have just as easily been a portrait of fabric design or an abstract painting.

The thing that saves Valéry Grancher’s work is that it’s well painted – and like the brushwork – but I like to see more insightful interpertations of the web from the first artist who painted it.