Student Resource

Details and the uncanny coursework guide

Paying extreme attention to detail in creating artworks, can both draw us in and repel us as viewers.

Detail in every stroke

The Pre-Raphaelite movement strove for detail with technical skill, creating intensity and dreamlike qualities

Sir John Everett Millais, Bt
Mariana (1851)
Tate

Sir John Everett Millais, Bt
Ophelia (1851–2)
Tate

John Brett
Glacier of Rosenlaui (1856)
Tate

John Singer Sargent
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885–6)
Tate

John Brett
Florence from Bellosguardo (1863)
Tate

William Davis
A Day’s Sport at Bidston Hill (c.1865)
Tate

Robert Braithwaite Martineau
Kit’s Writing Lesson (1852)
Tate

William Holman Hunt
Our English Coasts, 1852 (‘Strayed Sheep’) (1852)
Tate

Arthur Hughes
April Love (1855–6)
Tate

John William Waterhouse
The Lady of Shalott (1888)
Tate

Photoreal?

Creating what looks like a photograph or even a real object with dedicated and meticulous craft skills can make us question our own eyes. Changing scales and perfect realism can create a sense of unease. ‘Uncanny Valley’ is the term we use when forms look convincingly human, but we know they are not.

Peter Fischli, David Weiss
Untitled (Tate) (1992–2000)
Tate

© Peter Fischli and the estate of David Weiss, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

Thomas Demand
Zeichensaal (Drafting Room) (1996)
Tate

© Thomas Demand

Andrew Grassie
Tate New Hang 8 (2005)
Tate

© Andrew Grassie

Robert Gober
Drains (1990)
Tate

© Robert Gober

Richard Estes
Untitled (1973–4)
Tate

© Richard Estes

Ron Mueck
Mask III (2005)
ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland

© Ron Mueck

Ron Mueck
Wild Man (2005)
ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland

© Ron Mueck

Ron Mueck
Spooning Couple (2005)
ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland

© Ron Mueck

Detailed dreams

Attention to detail can bring impossible situations and illusions we see in dreams into the waking world.

Meredith Frampton
Trial and Error (1939)
Tate

© Estate of Meredith Frampton

Salvador Dalí
Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
Tate

© Salvador Dali, Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation/DACS, London 2023

Leonora Carrington
Do You Know My Aunt Eliza? (1941)
Tate

© The estate of the artist, DACS, 2023

René Magritte
The Spirit of Geometry (1937)
Tate

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2023

Christopher Wood
Zebra and Parachute (1930)
Tate

Clive Branson
Blitz: Plane Flying (1940)
Tate

Salvador Dalí
Forgotten Horizon (1936)
Tate

© Salvador Dali, Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation/DACS, London 2023

René Magritte
Man with a Newspaper (1928)
Tate

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2023

Further Resources

Left Right
  • Robert Gober Untitled Leg 1989

    Mike Kelley: The Uncanny

    Mike Kelley: The Uncanny, Tate Modern

  • Hyper-realism

    The term hyper-realism appeared in the early 1970s to describe a resurgence of particularly high fidelity realism in sculpture and painting at that time

  • Photorealism

    Photorealism is a painting style that emerged in Europe and the USA in the late 1960s, characterised by its painstaking detail and precision

  • Surrealism

    A twentieth-century literary, philosophical and artistic movement that explored the workings of the mind, championing the irrational, the poetic and the revolutionary

  • Leonora Carrington, The Old Maids, 1947

    Love, friendship & rivalry: Surreal friends

    Discover Carrington's two most enchanting and influential friendships

  • Sorry, no image available

    One Step Beyond

    Lawrence Norfolk

    In his first visit to the Tate archive, Lawrence Norfolk searches out some footwear-related items