In the History of Art there is a coexistence between art and advertising, some artists who began as illustrators for advertising campaigns we know them today for their success in art.
The effort that an advertising creative makes to visualize a complex world with immediacy, made up of brand identity, values and aesthetics, is the result of an huge visual culture, that must necessarily move from design to graphics, from art to photography, from writing to specific knowledge of type design. It is also necessary to understand the philosophy behind an industrial process and the elements that influence cognitive perception.
Famous artists such as Henry Toulouse-Lautrec, René Magritte, the Italian Depero lent their creative ability to advertising. More recently Lorenzo Marini, founder of a highly successful advertising agency, held a solo exhibition of contemporary art in Venice, where he shown his works that replicate on canvas the so-called roughs draft used by creatives to sketch advertisement layouts.
But, in my opinion, the emblem of transition from advertising to art is Edward Hopper who, before being an artist, was an adman illustrator. However, his gaze on a still reality about to happen is the opposite of advertising message, where everything has already happened and has been carefully evaluated.
In his twenties he made three trips to Paris, where despite an intense cultural life lived by the artists in lounges and cafes, to the question "who did you meet in Paris?" he simply replied "none". This answer has always amused me because it is part of a typical feature of introverted creative, but also tells of a professionalism in art far from the "genius and recklessness" of usual image of an artist.
In Paris he just wanted to understand where the French painters found that so palpable light, and eventually he understood, since he flooded his personal vision of world with sharp sunlight.