Painter: Ilya Repin

A friend just introduced me to the turn-of-the (last) century Ukrainian painter Ilya Repin. His realistic works are incredibly lit and detailed. I love this stuff.

Comparing period costumes to even extremely carefully designed fantasy costumes (for instance, in the Lord of the Rings movies) just shows the amazing detail and crazy variety of real costumes. Even the simplest cloak or tunic in these paintings looks much better than the clothing in a typical computer game. Lush.

Check out the Gallery on Wikipedia's bio page.

Some of my favourites: