CategoriesMedium and Techniques
Close-Up
Images that fill the frame with a face, hand or fragment, cutting away context so detail and feeling take over, in painting, photography and film.
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About
A close-up fills the frame with a face, a hand or a fragment of an object, cutting away surroundings so that detail and emotion take over. Painters found the device before the camera named it. In 15th-century Netherlandish devotional panels, half-length figures of Christ or the Virgin are brought so near that the worshipper seems to share their space.
Photography and film made it central. Karl Blossfeldt magnified stems and seed heads in Urformen der Kunst (1928) until they resembled ironwork, and Carl Theodor Dreyer built The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) largely from faces. Georgia O'Keeffe enlarged flowers until they became landscapes of colour. In the 1960s Domenico Gnoli painted a shirt collar, a parting in hair or a shoe at monumental size, and Rodolfo Abularach devoted a series to enormous eyes. Bruce Gilden photographs strangers in the street from close range with a handheld flash.
Related artists
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Collage
Collecting and Modes of Display
Color Photography
Color Theory
Computer-Aided Manufacturing
Copies and Emulations
Delicate Materials
Densely Textured or Haptic Surface
Digital Art
Digital as Manual
Digital Painting and Drawing
Digital Print
Digitally Manipulated
Divinatory Objects, Talismans, and Amulets
Documentary Photography
