[worthless_meat_sack]

I have posted other places that tracing or other mechanical aids does not alter my estimation of an artists work.

It is an interesting article in any case.

I posted the text because the link contained "todayheadlines", so this is a little more permanent, and you don�t have to go anywhere

From the NYtimes


November 29, 2001

Old Masters Pursued by Artistic Gumshoes

By MEL GUSSOW

Find additional information by selecting from the following topics.
Art
Hockney, David
Museums
Debating

More than 25 curators and scholars, artists and art historians will gather at New York University this weekend to discuss � and, presumably, to debate � David Hockney's iconoclastic theory that old masters, all the way back to 1430, used optical devices to help them produce realistic images.

Acting as art detective, Mr. Hockney teamed up with an optical scientist, Charles Falco. They have been sleuthing the case for more than a year and plan to begin the symposium on "Art and Optics" by presenting their evidence at the opening session on Saturday morning. The conference is in the Tishman Auditorium, 40 Washington Square South.

For Mr. Hockney, the proof is in the paintings. By looking at the art itself, he says, one can find aspects that could have been done only with the help of optics: highlights in Vermeer; a woman who seems to have two elbows on the same arm in Chardin's "Return From the Market"; the pattern on a carpet in Lorenzo Lotto's "Husband and Wife." Having studied paintings with Mr. Falco, Mr. Hockney said, "It is inconceivable that artists wouldn't have used such devices."

The theory has been raised before, but Mr. Hockney views it in a far broader context and over a period of 600 years. He recently published his findings in a lavishly illustrated book, "Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters" (Viking Studio) and participated in a BBC television documentary in which he demonstrated the use of lenses.

His thesis, as summarized in the book: "From the early 15th century many Western artists used optics � by which I mean mirrors and lenses (or a combination of the two) � to create living projections. Some artists used these projected images directly to produce drawings and paintings, and before long this new way of depicting the world � this new way of seeing � had become widespread."

Lawrence Weschler, whose article in The New Yorker brought Mr. Hockney's theory to wide public attention last year, organized the conference as director of the New York Institute for the Humanities. Anticipating the weekend with hyperbolic humor, he said: "We're going to convene the College of Cardinals, and I'm going to start a bonfire outside. By the end of the conference we'll decide if Hockney and Falco should be burned at the stake as heretics � or the other possibility: we'll send up a plume of white smoke and Hockney will be declared pope."

There is a wide difference of opinion, even among art historians, with skeptics feeling that if Mr. Hockney's theory were true, it would add little to the understanding of art.

"Vermeer must have seen a camera obscura and been impressed by its effects," said Walter Liedtke, curator of European painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "but it's extremely na�ve to think he traced objects in front of his eyes," as was described in Philip Steadman's book, "Vermeer's Camera." A camera obscura is a lens that projects a reverse image in a dark room. Mr. Hockney's book "relates to scholarly literature like any coffee-table book," Mr. Liedtke said. "He doesn't know what he doesn't know. It's amusing and frustrating at the same time."

In contrast, Gary Tinterow, also a curator at the Met, said: "Hockney is definitely onto something. In the case of my field, 19th-century French painting, there is no question that certain artists used optical aids like the camera lucida." A camera lucida, a small prism at the end of a rod, allows an artist to see the face of a subject in the prism so the image can be accurately sketched.

The use of such aids has been ignored by art historians, Mr. Tinterow said. "There is a bias among them against curiosity regarding artists' material and practical methods."

At the symposium, Mr. Liedtke, Mr. Tinterow and Mr. Steadman are speaking on the same panel, on Saturday at 5 p.m. Chuck Close, also a panelist, said, "I really support David's view that from a point when lenses existed, and people saw what the world looked like flattened out, art definitively changed." The primary resistance from art historians, he said, is "that there are no eyewitness accounts."

Mr. Hockney's interest goes back 25 years, but his curiosity was aroused in 1999 when he visited an Ingres exhibition at the National Gallery in London. After studying the paintings and drawings, he bought the catalog and enlarged the work on a copier. He decided that there was a similarity in line drawings between Ingres and � of all people � Andy Warhol. As Mr. Hockney said, the lines were "clean, fast, completely assured." Warhol had freely admitted that he traced images. Mr. Hockney said, "Ingres wasn't using a slide projector, but he might well have been using a refracting instrument of some sort" � an early version of a camera.

Turning part of his studio into a kind of laboratory, Mr. Hockney covered a wall with hundreds of reproductions of great art. It was immediately apparent to him that the acknowledged shift of artists to greater naturalism (during the 15th to the 19th centuries) was not gradual. Instead, "the optical look arrived suddenly and was immediately coherent and complete."

Mr. Hockney said that before photography, artists used lenses to project images of their subjects, images that were ephemeral, "until the chemical process could freeze it on a piece of paper." An optical projection looks like a photograph, he said, "except that it has soft edges." When Mr. Hockney demonstrates the process, people say the results resemble a painting. "The paintings looked like optical projections because they came first," he said.

The change in artistic technique suggested to him that there must have been technical innovations known to artists of the time. One such advancement was the discovery of analytical linear perspective, Mr. Hockney writes, which "provided artists with a technique for depicting recession in space, with objects and figures scaled just as they would appear to the eye from a single point."

Linear perspective, he added, does not allow artists to paint patterns, to follow folds in material or to shine in armor. He decided that for such detailed work, they may have had optical instruments.
In his investigation, Mr. Hockney focused his painter's eye and his imagination on the work of Ingres and others, including van Eyck, Caravaggio, Titian, Raphael and Vel�zquez. In their paintings he found "optical-rendered imagery." In some instances, there were mirrors and lenses in the pictures themselves, as in Robert Campin's "Heinrich von Werl Triptych," leading Mr. Hockney to think they were an everyday part of the artists' equipment. Using a camera lucida and a camera obscura, he recreated what he believed was the method of the earlier artists.

It has been thought that specific artists like Canaletto and Vermeer may have used optical devices. Recently, X-rays revealed that Thomas Eakins had traced projected images while doing some of his paintings in the late 1800's. Mr. Hockney broadened the time span and explored the work of artists throughout Western Europe.

His more speculative point was that with the advent of photography and the chemical processes of development in 1839, the use of optics by artists markedly declined. In his theory, as artists realized they could not compete with photography in reproducing reality, "awkwardness" returned to art, and that signaled the beginning of Impressionism, Cubism and abstraction.

Mr. Hockney insists he is not accusing artists of cheating. A device like a camera lucida, he said, is difficult to use and is "just a tool � it doesn't paint the picture." Though art historians may disagree, he believes that knowing more about the technique enhances art appreciation. As he said, "It made a lot of pictures more interesting � certainly not less so."

Mr. Weschler's article provoked an avalanche of letters, arousing anger as well as agreement. It also brought Mr. Falco into the fray and, at least in this area, unified art and science. A professor of optical sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Mr. Falco has long had an interest in art. (He was a curator of the "Art of the Motorcycle" exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.) Mr. Weschler introduced him to Mr. Hockney and the two men embarked on their expedition.

Perhaps the most fascinating section of Mr. Hockney's book is the exchange of faxes between the collaborators. As they make discoveries, they are like detectives working on a case at long distance. Mr. Hockney notices that figures in paintings by Caravaggio and Hals are left- handed and look more natural when the images are reversed. He surmises that they are mirror images. As they pushed the starting date for optics back to the 15th century, Mr. Falco announced: "I'm beginning to feel like we're F.B.I. agents who are slowly unraveling evidence that reveals the names of all the mobsters involved in an organized-crime family. It's the Flemish Mafia."

For them, "the Rosetta stone" or "smoking gun," in Mr. Falco's alternate descriptions, was Lotto's "Husband and Wife." In this 1543 painting, the pattern on a carpet covering a table goes out of focus as it recedes into the distance. "The human eye would not see this, but a lens would," Mr. Hockney wrote.

Mr. Falco set up a lens "to project the pattern, but discovered that it could not all be in focus at the same time." He refocused on the rear of the carpet, which changed the magnification of the image. Lotto's solution, Mr. Falco decided, was to paint part of the carpet out of focus. Drawing upon laws of geometrical objects, he concluded that "if a jury of optical scientists was presented with that evidence, Lotto would be convicted of using a lens." Persuading a jury of art historians would be more difficult.

One crucial question concerns the concept of genius. Just as a musician can be said to have perfect pitch, could not a masterly artist produce a virtuosic painting simply with his own eye and hand? Could not Lotto have drawn the intricacy of that carpet's pattern without the benefit of technical assistance?

On Saturday and Sunday, testimony will be delivered and the jury will convene. The sessions are free and open to the public. Because of limited seating, the discussions will be televised to audiences in adjoining rooms. Along with the panels, demonstrations of the camera lucida and camera obscura and various other lenses are planned, as are screenings of the BBC documentary.

Considering the diverse views, there may be fireworks before the bonfire is ignited. Which of the participants will record the scene in the receding perspective of art history?

[jr]

thanks for posting this,
This debate has been the hottest topic in my painting class. I find it na�ve for Hockney to say that all of these artists used these devices for their artwork. Of course there are artists who used these lenses to aid them, it is only practical. As if this was some sort of an expose’, almost to belittle their work or skills. I’ve seen many of these artworks up close and Hockney is wrong. I take special notice to the part about Ingres. His drawings look that way because he was an excellent draftsman. Dozens of his drawings were on display at the Met 2 years ago. this type of work can be done without the use of the lens.
Perhaps he feels threatened by the resurgence of realism, I don’t know.
my teacher's artwork
i'll definitly go check out what they have to say!

[ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: jr ]

[xXxPZxXx]

Oh wow. that is such a weird concept, I would never have thought about it. It does seem quite possible, and I hate to say it but if it is true that they did that I think it hurts my interpretation of some of the older "masters"

Of course a lot of people throughout history probably could paint with such perfection things, without needing to "trace" or "cheat" even though the final product IS what matters and its not really cheating. It is kind of like eating Jello all your life then finding out its made of ground up animal hooves and whatnot. Sure its still the same thing. but it kind of spoils it a bit. =/

Thanks for the heads up!

-PZ-

[egerie]

By Toutatis !
What make me ponder is why is it thought to be so depreciative of an artist if they used such means ?
I mean at the time I don't think it was considered cheating. Is it that today we perceive it because reproduction and projection tools are so easely available to everyone ?
And as for the 'masterpeices', I would think that a fir amount of them were made for a learning purpose. I mean those artists weren't born one day with the light of God shining on them giving them infused science. They had to practice, work, understand, work harder, practice, practice, practice, etc.

Reading this article made me think of a fabulous book that was offered to me whose title could loosely be translated as such : [u]Drawing - Italian Public Collections[/u] - Istituto Bancario San Paolo Di Torino.
There is stuff from life in there and some completely amazing and huge pieces whom I doubt could ever have been done with optical aids (cruches, call them what you want). I'll post some scans if anyone's interested !

Edit: meh.. I just now realise Mr. Hockney was focusing on the Flemish renaissance (but also trowing a lot of other artists in there).
Blah blah waffle blah. Maybe someone wants their 15 mins of fame.....

[ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: egerie ]

[Steven Stahlberg]

If you think about it statistically, what is the likelihood that a past with only a few hundred thousand people in it would produce such a multitude of incredible artist geniuses, while today, going on 7 billion, we don't seem to have as many? Or at least not that many more?

As explanation to that, I often hear that the old masters knew a lot of stuff that has been lost... Could it be that some of this 'lost lore' was trade secrets on how to use optics? Not telling anyone who didn't need to know would have been entirely in keeping with the spirit of competition, and the guild-mentality.

(And I'm not knocking the use of optics, I just want all the cards on the table thank you very much.)

[jr]

steven, i'll have to disagree with you. there are just as many ( % wise) "art geniuses" now as there were then, if not more! people just arn't as interested in oil painting or the traditional fine arts as they were then, people are doing movies and video games now. i mean if you want to see creativity at work look at those illustration annuals! there are so many awesome artists out there! i think hockney's theory is bogus.
on the other hand, it's true that many artists would destroy their sketches, so that their patrons would think that their work was divine... and came from the heavens.....

[ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: jr ]

[Steven Stahlberg]

quote

Quote:

there are just as many ( % wise) "art geniuses" now as there were then, if not more! people are doing movies and video games now. i mean if you want to see creativity at work look at those illustration annuals!

Yes I agree, that's not what I meant. What some people persistently claim is that most graphical artists today can't paint those big realistic detailed oil colors like the old masters used to do so well, but I've always had my doubts about that one. Now it seems the old ones may have had a little extra help we didn't know about before... well good, I'm not pissed off, I'd do it myself, but... I just don't like the secrecy.

Also, a related topic - I'm pretty sure Zorn used photographs A LOT, I've spotted some obvious tracing even in one of his art books (one of his etchings traced from a photo). But this is glossed over or hushed up in the text, written by the same kind of art historians mentioned in the article it seems. We are led to believe that Zorn had some kind of magical photographic memory (his studies of rippling water are famous for looking so incredibly real). If he did it, how many others have? See, I just don't like deceit, that's all.

[burn0ut]

mabye he used grids steven?

[A.Buttle]

I don't have any thoughts on the painting thing, but a huge thumbs up to New York University.

It's just too bad our school color is violet. It could have been something cool, like black, but no, it's violet.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Hm, never mind, I looked again, it's not 'hushed up', it's just not talked about more than writing those 2 short words "photographic reference" next to a couple photos of his. It's late, I'm tired. It's just annoying the bullshit they type, pages and pages. And I *was* a little dispappointed to find that my hero used photographs... silly I know.

[silber]

silber looks at old masterpainting
silber likes old masterpainting
silber reads text
silber finds text interesting
silber looks at old masterpainting
silber likes old masterpainting

silber thanks worthless_meat_sack for posting

[Sumaleth]

Fascinating stuff.

Row.

[ceenda]

Yup, heard about this a while ago.

There's a famous book around about it, almost bought it on Amazon the other day.

[jr]

ok, for anyone that's interested, here's a site that's full of goodies about this topic!!!!!! www.artandoptics.com

[ November 30, 2001: Message edited by: jr ]

[Akolyte]

Confusing.

[lel]

...two elbows??
"A fool with a tool is still a fool"?

[Ragnarok]

Maybe the old paintings have that different "touch" in the materials involved? I mean, the paint was made from different things than today, wasn't it? Now it's more sintetic and cheap, but maybe not as powerful?

[eyewoo]

Unlike Jr, I don't think Hockney's theory is bogus... but I also don't think the artists that used projected images to help establish a composition did it all the time, and probably not at all while they were students... and I'm quite sure that most if not all of them could do the initial drawing work without optical help. I suspect the real meaning here has more to do with the amount of time saved by using tracing tricks.

[Ben Barker]

Hmm. I think some of the old masters used optics. But some things were still so wonderfully done they are almost miraculous.
Take this: http://www.companysj.com/v183/gesufig4.jpg
The painted ceiling of The Ges� in Rome, by Giovanni Battista Gaulli. You can't tell where the real ceiling stops and where the painting starts. You think something is real architecture, but then clouds and angels float in front of it. It would take major optics to project something like that.
There are other examples too, of course.

[jr]

for those of you who want to know what happened at the conference, here's an article about it. new york times

[eyewoo]

jr... wish I'd been there. Would have been fun.

Doesn't seem like abyone was moved one way or the other. Seems to be just more evidence that art is truly a multifaceted subjective experience...

I, for one, am upset that Thomas Eakins tried to hide his use of traced photographs... but, I can understand why he did at that time in history. I see no reason for embarrassment today, but I suspect there are many that think my work is less, both for using photos for reference and by the fact that I do it completely digitally. oh well...

[jr]

photos usually lessen the wow factor in the audience response, for some reason when you tell them you used photographic reference, they seem to think it's made much easier.... kinda like, oh, i could do that if i wanted to. i don't see any vermeers out there. or caravagios.
anywho, this secret knowledge stuff will be debated for a while.

[Painted Melody]

I happen to catch the Eakins show recently at the Philly museum, and this was before I knew it was claimed the use of photographs. It doesn't lessen the breath taking experience for me.

True, as art workers were very focused on the technical, but I think it's as important to realize why we took into art in the first place, and to develop a personal feeling and connection for what we continously labor over.

Thomas Eakins did just that.

Jeremy

[edible snowman]

the ability to copy shapes exactly as you see them and paint well are two different skills in my opinion. most people who have little exposure to art don't realize what it takes to paint well, and are only knowlegable about what it takes to copy well. it is unquestionalby easier to trace something, but that doesn't take away from the value of the painting.

[Malachi Maloney]

quote:

---

Originally posted by fleabrain:

I, for one, am upset that Thomas Eakins tried to hide his use of traced photographs... but, I can understand why he did at that time in history. I see no reason for embarrassment today, but I suspect there are many that think my work is less, both for using photos for reference and by the fact that I do it completely digitally. oh well...

---

How 'bout I grab a paddle and you grab a paddle....Seeing as how we're in the same boat and all.

Malachi

[eyewoo]

hahahahahahaha... hopefully we won't also need a bucket...