Wizard Photographs

[frankielee242]

No: HPFGUIDX 42362


Fyre Wood wrote:
> > 
> > I like your new idea with painted pictures. Never would have thought
> > of that one. However, does the painted picture come to life as you're
> > painting it, or does it come to life when you're done? 
> 

Grey Wolf wrote:
> Looking up canon, we know that a magical photo is a photo that has been 
> revealed with a special liquid (just after the three traditional 
> red-blue-yellow ones, I'd imagine), to fix the personality capture to 
> the photo paper. Thus, I'd imagine that the images aren't moving before 
> it (since it's a perfectly normal picture until then). By 
> extrapolating, I can imagine that a magical painting receives a final 
> layer of magical paint that brings all the paint to "life", with the 
> personalities acquired during the painting.


The last step in oil painting is applying varnish (which yellows over
time producing a "brown" effect-- the sudden vibrancy of restored
paintings always shocks people). Perhaps like the fix potion for
photos, the varnish potion for paintings sets them in motion. =) Sorry.

I agree with the concept that the amount of time the creation of the
image affects how much of the subject's personality enters the artwork
and would like to add the following: Photographs capture a split
second of light reflecting off of assorted surfaces, but paintings are
an extended collaboration between the painter and the sitter.
Therefore, they reveal a mix of BOTH personalties but may or may not
*look* particularly like the sitter.

Whether or not the subject of the artwork is still alive doesn't seem
to affect the paintings or the photos of Harry's parents. I think the
condition the artwork is in affects the subject featured. The photo of
Percy's girlfriend had a tea-stain on her nose and kept hiding under
the frame (PoA). When the Fat Lady's canvas was torn up (PoA), she hid
in other paintings until Filtch could restore her.

What I'm not entirely sure about is how much the images interact with
the surrounding environment. Lockhart's photos all put on hair nets
and rollers at night. Then they all nod in agreement while the actual
Lockhart rambles on about Filtch's cat (CoS). The Hogwarts paintings
talk to students and scoot through each other's frames regularly, but
where on earth did Violet and the Fat Lady get the chocolate liquors
in GoF? Does Honeydukes supply paintings of food in the Unusual Tastes
section? If a painting of a horse eats most of a painting of a bowl of
fruit, does the fruit bowl remain empty or does the fruit ever
reappear? Take the question however you like. =P 

Thinking about Pygmalion... could the same ever happen to a WW painting? 


Grey Wolf then wrote:
> Grey Wolf, who hopes there are no Picassos or Munchs in the WW, or else 
> that they're non-ultra-realistic styles are not used to create living 
> pictures.


I am now going to have nightmares about Francis Bacon, thank you very
much Gray Wolf. Perhaps the nonrepresentational artists in the WW
would create large canvases of perpetually shifting areas of color.
That could be very soothing, actually... 


Frankie, who suffered through four years of 8 AM art history classes.