The Relationship between Hyperrealism Painting and the Hyperreality World Based on Baudrillard's Simulation Theory

Hyper-realism painting depicts an extremely realistic image of the details of the world which through the depiction of abundance presents a different view of the world reality. This style of painting is related to the reality of today's human life and since everything in the picture is based on plurality, it adds to accuracy in art. Probably upon the elimination of that part of reality which should have been the main focus, the reality itself will be eliminated. However, the recent technological advances have provided so many tools for more and more exploration of the world and expression of viewpoints in this regard that has never been possible before. Today, the human world is filled with details and via general twisting of the fundamental question; it presents a part of the challenge of authentic reality. The present study tries to conceptualize the idea of hyper-reality, posed as abundance of reality, in hyperrealism painting. This state of hyper-reality is characterized by Baudrillard's definition. Jean Baudrillard is a sociologist and a serious critic of contemporary society, who believes that the tradition of classical theory and the era of modernity have come to an end, and that the main focus should be upon the requirements of this era, i.e. postmodern. Given that in the modern society, the subject is intimately connected with reality and its representation, in the postmodern society the subject loses its connection with the real. Baudrillard uses his own simulation theory for this span of time. Based on this concept, we have entered a globalized world in which the subject has been lost and is not associated with the real thing he calls 'hyper-realism'. According to Baudrillard, Borges presented one of the first parables of the theory of hyperrealism. In one of his stories, an obsessive geographer tries to draw a map of actual, real scale, and when the empire collapsed, the map was only thing that remained. Here we see a representation of reality without an original referent because the map represents a realm that no longer exists. In this story, a representation with an abundance of details similar to reality replaces the reality that it represents, which is no longer in existence. The accumulation of details in hyper-realistic paintings is somewhat comparable to this example, which is a demonstration of an acute state of reality. To clarify this analogy, we will try to look at similar features of visual representations through the concept of simulation, which is a specific state of the representation of truth in Baudrillard's view. Hence, the search for the point of collision between the representation of truth in hyperrealism painting and the hyper-reality world becomes important. The theoretical framework of the study is based on a comparison between the representation of reality and the reality itself in the visual world of hyperrealism with that of the world of hyper-reality in accordance with the third order of Baudrillard named simulation, which has periodic divisions in Baudrillard’s view. This study employs historical-analytical method of research to provide a historical overview of the developmental stages of hyper-realistic painting beginning with visual representations, and compares them with Baudrillard's three historical periods (pre-modern, modern, post-modern) in order to find an answer to the pivotal question of the article: is there a similarity between hyper-real expressions of hyper-realistic painting and the hyper-reality world? There are also other questions to consider such as how does the state of the contemporary realism compare to the Baudrillard historical instructions? In order to find answers to the main question of this study, the formation of the required reality will be discussed in two contexts and its occurrence in different periods of time. The study hypothesis is based on the existence of commonality between hyper-realistic paintings and the hyperreal world, and the resulting situation that after the representation of truth coinciding with itself makes the recognition of the subject difficult. It could be estimated that the fading of the boundaries of reality and its representation in this way questions the existence of the subject itself. Employing descriptive-analytical method of research, the study presents a historical perspective of the periods of representation's development in realist to hyperrealism painting and its relation to the hyperreality world is investigated. Works cited and necessary information to complete this study was obtained through available library resources, scholarly papers and relevant theoretical studies made in the field. This research deals with its topic in three sections. First and foremost, it contains an introduction describing the style of hyperrealism in painting, which attempts to draw the relation between this type of representation and reality. Next, the description of the hyper-real world is studied via employing the outlines of Baudrillard's three orders. In the final section, the question of visual representation of a historical process is proposed and the relation between the representation and reality in different eras has been described which makes the comparison of hyper-realistic paintings to the characteristics of the simulation possible. The findings of this study point to the progressive degradation of the subject and the object's independence in a world the basis of which is the object and not the subject. Through confirming the similarities, the final conclusion illustrates that the hyperrealism representation complies with the extreme reflection of the truth (hyperrealism) in the postmodern era.