PHOTOGRAPH OR PAINTING? THESE LANDSCAPES ARE BOTH

7/24/2018 Photograph or Painting? These Landscapes Are Both | WIRED
https://www.wired.com/story/guillaume-hebert-photography-painting/ 1/9
07.18.18 08:00 AM
PHOTOGRAPH OR PAINTING? THESE LANDSCAPES ARE
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1 / 15 Guillaume Hebert created this image by combining his photograph of an ordinary city street with Cole
Thomas's painting (1834) Guillaume HebertThe Arcadian
2 / 15 Guillaume Hebert superimposed a photograph of a basketball hoop with William Turner's painting
(1815) in this image. Guillaume HebertAvernus Lake, Aeneas and the Cumaei Sibylle
3 / 15 Hebert used Photoshop to combine his photograph of a concrete wall with Lucas Van Valckenborch's
4 / 15 Here, a photograph of a nondescript building stands against Salvator Rosa's painting
(1637). Guillaume HebertLandscape in the Bay of Naples5 / 15 A photograph of a simple metal shed is placed against a background taken from Dughet Gaspard's
6 / 15 For this image, Hebert placed his photograph of a stack of shipping pallets aga
Jean-Honoré Fragonard's painting (1764). Guillaume HebertLe Rocher
7 / 15 Hebert worked hard to match the lighting and color of photographs and paintin
grisaille hybrid of an urban photograph with the sky of Philips Koninck's
(1655). Guillaume HebertAn Extensive Landscape with a Road by a River
8 / 15 Here, Hebert juxtaposes his photograph of an ordinary road embankment agai
(1672). Guillaume HebertLandscape with Aeneas at Delos9 / 15 A photograph of a concrete dam is seamlessly melded with William Marlow's
(1780) in this dual-media image. Guillaume Hebert
V
10 / 15 In this image Hebert combines a photograph of a building under construction
painting (1844). Guillaume HebertRain, Steam and Speed
11 / 15 Eugène Delacroix's (1859) looms behind Hebert's ph
anonymous industrial building in this hybrid image. Guillaume Hebert
Ovide Chez Les Scythes
12 / 15 A photograph of a covered car sits in the foreground
Guillaume Hebert
13 / 15 For this image, Hebert photographed a recycling site
Zuccarelli's (1734).Classical Landscape with Small Waterfall
14 / 15 An industrial dump is foregrounded against the paint
(date unknown). Guillaume HebertIn the Hight Mountains
15 / 15 Hebert's photograph of an urban construction site is
Marlow's (date unknown). GuillCastle on the Rhône River
1 / 15 Guillaume Hebert created this image by combin
Thomas's painting (1834). GuillaumeThe Arcadian
2 / 15 Guillaume Hebert superimposed a photograph
(1815) in thAvernus Lake, Aeneas and the Cumaei Sibylle
MICHAEL HARDY PHOTO
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AS A STUDENT at the School of Fine Arts in Caen, France, Guillaume Hebert studied
painting. He later transitioned into photography, but rather than leave his first
love behind he developed a novel way to combine it with his new passion.
In his 2017 series Rocks of Ludao, Hebert seamlessly combined photographs of the
Taiwanese shoreline with classical landscape paintings he found on Google
Images, creating hybrid photograph-paintings convincing enough to fool the
casual viewer. The experiment proved so successful that Hebert reprised it in
another series, Updated Landscape, in which he juxtaposed photographs of banal
urban scenery with the lush Baroque and Romantic landscapes of artists like Jean-
Honoré Fragonard, Eugène Delacroix, and William Turner.
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Hebert took the photographs for the series in China, Indonesia, and Taiwan, then
spent days poring over high-resolution digital reproductions of paintings, looking
for ones that would match his photographs in lighting and perspective. Since all of
the artists were long dead and their paintings the property of public museums,
Hebert didn’t encounter any copyright issues.
After pairing up photograph and painting, Hebert used Photoshop to surgically
combine them into a single image, carefully adjusting color and tone to ensure a
perfectly blended final scene. This post-production process can take anywhere
15 / 15 Hebert's photograph of an urban construction site is placed against a painted landscape from William
Marlow's (date unknown). Guillaume HebertCastle on the Rhône River
Thomass painting (1834). Guillaume HebertThe Arcadianp p g p
painting (1580). Guillaume HebertMountainous River Landscape
(1670) in this hybrid image. Guillaume HebertLandscape in the Roman Campagna

from eight to 20 hours. "I don't want it to look like a collage," Hebert says. "I want
people, when they look at my picture, to see just one image and not two."
It takes many viewers a few moments to understand the illusion. "People have to
stop in front of the picture to look carefully and figure out what has happened,
discover the painting," Herbert says. Out of respect for the painters whose work
he's sampling, Hebert includes information about the original work in his captions
so that curious viewers can seek it out for themselves.
"For me, photography is just a continuity of painting, so when I mix the two media
I'm emphasizing their continuity," Hebert says. "I don’t really care about the
traditional way we use photography. I don’t put limits on my pictures."
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PHOTOGRAPH OR PAINTING? THESE LANDSCAPES ARE BOTH

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PHOTOGRAPH OR PAINTING? THESE LANDSCAPES ARE BOTH