These paintings have zero artistic value because they have no authentic connection to the person who paints them. Practicing a traditional craft is a form of self-expression and connection with one's heritage (even if the products are for export). These pictures are just kitsch.
It's just a meaningless intrusion of random jpgs into the lives of the people who make them.
"These paintings have zero artistic value" is quite an harsh judgement, especially when defining the "artistic value" is so subjective.
It's not like commissioned painting is a new thing, and it yielded some masterpieces. Bringing it to a broader audience can be beneficial for artists themselves.
I remember seeing an interview of an African artist who was telling the journalist that before she gained some fame in her country she was living in quite a precarious financial situation. I think there's definitely some merit to such a service if it might help some artists in similar situations, as by solidifying a source of income, they could then devote themselves to paint things they really want to paint.
Are you upset that the artists just get a jpeg where some of the artistic choice has already been made (like posing and lighting)? Or do you disagree with portraiture in general as an art form?
OK, I'll make an effort to explain myself, even though I can see that I'm on to a loser with this line of argument.
We need to forget for a moment that artists today cannot match the old masters. But what they still have in common (with the artists of a few hundred years ago) is that when they make art, they are interpreting something in the world. This interpretation is personal, and it involves insight into the thing that's being represented. Painting from a photograph is, broadly speaking, imitation, not interpretation (although plenty of serious artists use photos as a tool for documenting a scene).
Michelangelo, as you probably know, had a lot of discretion in how he posed and represented the figures in his paintings. He wasn't just taking a predetermined image and rendering it in a personal style. Because of the extent to which he could use his own discernment in deciding how to represent the subjects of the painting, he could express his own attitude to the subject (which was universal, at least in terms of his world) in a meaningful way.
Basically, the idea of a mail-order JPG->painting scheme seems completely dumb to me, because there is nothing special about physical paintings per se. They're only special when an artist is given a chance to make them special by using their own creative judgment and knowledge of the subject they are depicting. If that's not an option, a photo is perfectly good.
Nobody seems to have bothered to write a critique of Instapainting, presumably because all this is common knowledge.
A commission from the Catholic Church during the Renaissance and a commission from a present-day random overseas person might be different things.
In the past, patrons were generally well-known or well-established in a way that would have made them meaningful to the artist before the work even began.
On the other hand, maybe "random overseas person" actually is meaningful as a category, if not as an individual.
It's hard to think about.
EDIT: It would be interesting to learn how the artists feel about this type of work after a few years of pursuing it.
