Anime Art

A few days ago my sister was talking to her daughter and one of her friends, and when the kids said they loved doing anime-style character drawings, my sister (a career artist) told them that they should learn other styles, because art schools tend not to accept applicants who draw only in the anime style. But that got me to thinking, what if there was an applicant who was an accomplished painter, and they sent in an application that was of all these famous paintings, like Da Vinci's Last Supper, the Mona Lisa, portraits by Van Gogh and Gauguin, paintings by Klimt, Vermeer, El Greco, etc., but all done where the people have anime style eyes and such? Would an art school reject that artist?

The truth is, that would be an original style, so that artist wouldn't need to go to art school, especially if they were already accomplished in their painting technique. In fact, there is quite possibly already a successful artist with this exact style, but if so, I don't know of them. Mark Ryden and all his (many) imitators might be kinda close, but still, not the same.

But the way the current underground art scene is, it would certainly fit in for someone's style to be classical works in an anime character style, but with excellent technique. (My favorite painter, Isabel Samaras, has a wonderful conceptual schtick, but she's a lot better than what I'm talking about here. Although to look at her career, it seems to me that she came up with a novel idea {putting pop-culture characters into the classical art milieu}, and she ran with it, increasing her ability and technique along the way until she matched the best painters in most museums for technical ability. And someone following the same idea, but with anime-style characters, might have a similarly successful career path, especially in the next generation, when everyone who grew up watching anime will feel a real connection to the art, reminiscing about their childhood, like Isabel Samaras does with my generation.)

This is Isabel Samaras, for those who are unfamiliar (She is truly a god among mortals!):

http://astrocat.com/samaras/