When photography landed in the mid-nineteenth century it produced a crisis in painting, out of which came the extraordinary phenomenon that we know as modern art. Artists became liberated by their new task: to show us the world as they saw it, rather than trying to copy nature.

So what are we to think of a group of artists who call themselves realists? Are they a throwback to another age, or are they offering a new vision of the role of the artist?

Steve Whitehead’s View of Scarborough, which greets you as you emerge on to the art gallery’s top landing, is a dazzling foretaste of things to come. The strong light and bright colours give a sense of unreality to an apparently real scene. Seeing such a strikingly ‘real’ image is strangely disorientating. When you get near to the painting you see that the high lustre and exactness of the image is actually an illusion produced by distance. Close up the painting is textured and quite inexact – the opposite of reality.

Distance matters, and so does scale. In Clive Head’s Prague Early Morning and Nathan Walsh’s Sicilian Avenue, buildings loom above the viewer – is this a distortion or a novel view of the familiar? They bring to mind the early experiments with perspective of artists like Masaccio and Piero della Francesca. In all these paintings the exquisite technique gives the paintings a neatness that we’re not used to seeing; the sun shines, even the litter looks clean, and the people are incidental.

David Finnigan’s work is different. In Evolution the people are centre stage, the slabs of colour much broader, the emotional impact stronger – a different view of reality.

By creating convincing illusion, this show begs new questions about what is real. Not to be missed.

Scarborough Realists Now
Work by Steve Whitehead, Clive Head, Nathan Walsh, David Finnigan (all artists living and working in Scarborough)
4 Oct to 14 Dec Tues to Sun 10 to 5
Scarborough Art Gallery