Old Masters and photography

[wannamakestuff]

Anyone else read the book by David Hockney on how the Old Masters used cameras and such to trace images to paint? I think it makes sense and doesn't make the art less of a work of art. I don't understand how some would consider it cheating. There were some really neat examples of paintings that the artist says were painted by tracing and the use of a camera.

[juneto]

I haven't read it, but I read a long review in the New York Times Magazine Section about it..
Some facts I knew before and some were new to me. I hope to read it soon.
As a great Teacher I had once said to me ,"There is nothng new under the sun".
June

[Enchanted]

Originally Posted by wannamakestuff

Anyone else read the book by David Hockney:

I've read enough to agree with art historians who have discredited it. I knew about optical devices such as the camera obscura years before Hockney seems to have learned about them. I dislike his attempt to claim that what he writes on the subject is somehow revelatory - that he is enlightening the art world to the cheating by the great artists of the past.

[Rosic]

Originally Posted by wannamakestuff

I don't understand how some would consider it cheating.

I haven't read the book either. I don't consider the method cheating as much as I consider it a crutch that may hinder some artist from mastering drawing skills. Notice I say some artist... many have their drawing skills down pat and use transfer methods to apply their sketch to canvas before painting.
Bernie

[Danny]

Leonardo is one of the artists that Hockney claimed used these devices. If you read the translated note Leonardo wrote in the book he constantly kept and wrote in, you would realize this was a ridicules notion. I have read his notes and writings. He spent a huge amount of time doing human body geometry. It would not make sense for him to waste his time on this if he used these cheat methods. I know of another artist who was a sculpture that was accused of using body cast because his proportions were too perfect on his sculptures. He was so upset that he went before a jury of the French Salon and did a sculpture before their eyes to lay to rest any notions that he ever used any body cast or anything else. Right before the eyes of the jury he created the perfect proportion of the model he was sculpting, laying to rest for all time that he ever cheated. It also led to the ruin of his accuser.
Jaxas wrote:

I've read enough to agree with art historians who have discredited it. I knew about optical devices such as the camera obscura years before Hockney seems to have learned about them. I dislike his attempt to claim that what he writes on the subject is somehow revelatory - that he is enlightening the art world to the cheating by the great artists of the past.

I am afraid I agree 100% The very best article about this is called Hockney Refuted presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art to a standing ovation by the Chairman of ARC. It is posted at the ARC website. You can view it here:
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2...d/hockney1.asp

[Enchanted]

Originally Posted by Danny

Leonardo is one of the artists that Hockney claimed used these devices.

Of course there ARE artists who are well-known for the use of the camera obscura, and other such devices. One that comes to mind is:

Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) (1697-1768).

He's the guy that painted the precisely accurate scenes of Venice, Italy which he did both with and without using the device. I think it's fairly easy to see which works benefitted if one does a comparison of very many of his paintings.

[Keith Russell]

Originally Posted by jaxas

I've read enough to agree with art historians who have discredited it. I knew about optical devices such as the camera obscura years before Hockney seems to have learned about them. I dislike his attempt to claim that what he writes on the subject is somehow revelatory - that he is enlightening the art world to the cheating by the great artists of the past.

I agree. I learned about the camera obscura, the pantograph, and other optical devices, studying commercial art twenty years ago.

Hockney seems to have an agenda that I find somewhat distasteful; that the Old Masters 'cheated' by using optics, so to prove their sincerity, artists today should not strive for that level of quality in their work. (I think it's an attempt to excuse artistic 'laziness'.)

There are numerous artists today who draw and paint extremely well, who do not rely on optics, and whose work is every bit as 'good' as any art, from any time.

Keith.

[stazz]

i've heard a lot about this article and the ARC chairman's response to it. from what i understand, David Hockney has a lot of circumstantial evidence to support his theories, and a lot of classically trained artists that are basically calling him on it.

what i have been told, and learned myself as i learn more about the use of technology as an 'assistant' for artistic purposes-- including even modern photography-- is that there are so many things that a lens/screen/whatever changes on the subject, that it simply cannot be trusted even as far as tracing. even the most carefully made photograph in the most ideallic circumstances will lose a great deal of human characteristics of sight. for example, photographs, by nature, have a limited range of value. this alone will affect your outcome, especially dealing with shadow shapes. and then there's that whole one-eye (as in cameras new and old) verses 2 (as in 2 eyes, like most humans). the illusion of depth that is supplied by having two eyes could never be captured or recreated by a single lens.

with this in mind, i think that it would be nearly impossible for masters hockney is labelling 'tracers' to produce the works that they have from camera alone. it still takes the ability to at least compensate for the camera's weakness. thus, hockney's point is moot. sure, maybe they used it as a tool, but did it make their art for them, as he seems to be implying? most certainly not.


just my two cents.

[bjs0704]

I found the Hockney book at my local library. Since I had heard reports about it on the radio, I was curious. There were more that a couple things in the book that Hockney said were created with a camera lucida that I suspect weren’t. I have read other account of how these paintings were made that seem more probably! He seemed to get carried with finding things that used “cameras”.

I have always felt that the importance of developing the best drawing skills one possible could is very important to an artist.

I sometimes hate it when people accuse painters of “cheater” when using these devices. It is too easy to get carried away with it. When I read an art history article, I really want to know how a painting is created. I want this info to be accurate as possible. Calling someone a cheat gives authors a reason to not give this info accurately.

The strange thing to me is that I have heard the “Hockney explanation” as a reason for a contemporary artist to not try to get drawings skills. I have also heard the “drawing devices don’t work” line of argument as a reason for a contemporary artist not trying.

Barb Solomon

[WFMartin]

Gosh, I don't know whether the old masters used any sort of optical device or not. But, as a retired lithographic cameraman and color separator I can truthfully state that if they, indeed, did use optical devices it would have probably been more of an astounding pain in the behind than some sort of "easy" or "cheating" type of crutch.

Here would be the scenario, as I envision it:

First, we'd have to assume they used either no lens at all (a pinhole camera), or at the very best a simple, double convex lens.

Either of these choices allows only a very limited amount of light through the aperture of the "camera".

We could perhaps accomplish a feat such as this today, because we can equip our camera gallery (where the scene is) with powerful xenon and halogen lighting equipment. But, they didn't have such light sources in those days.

I believe Vermeer has been said to have painted from images projected by this method. Have you ever looked carefully at the subjects that he painted? Dimly lit rooms, with harsh side-lighting and shadows that often blend in with the backgrounds upon which they were cast, as did some of the subjects, themselves.

When using either a pinhole camera, or a simple lens, the image cast on the film plane (which would be the canvas, or a white wall, I suppose), would be upside down. I would not think this to be the optimum position in which any skilled artist would prefer to do a sketch or a painting.

And, of course, the image being projected from any "live" setting would be not only upside down, but also reversed (flopped, if you will), because we are viewing any projected solid images (as opposed to a transparency, or "slide") on the film plane (the canvas) from what equates to the emulsion side of the film. And....the emulsion side of any film exposed in a simple camera is, out of necessity, flopped.

If a simple lens were to have been used in the process, due to a normal lens failing, known as spherical aberration, the projected image would undoubtedly have edges that would be quite indistinct and rainbowed in color, because the effect of this aberration creates a situation in which all the colors do not focus at the same focal plane.

But, of course, the main consideration, would, in my opinion, be the drastic lack of proper illumination required to even see the projected image, much less to sketch by it.

Then, there are those who imagined that the old masters actually painted by such an indistinct image as would have been the case. Combine that with the fact that in order to even be capable of detecting the projected image, the artist would have to be in a nearly totally darkened room. So dark, in fact, that it would be nearly impossible to see the colors of paint either on the palette, or on the canvas.

Also, unless the canvas and easel were held solid as a rock, the image would move and undulate upon the canvas surface, by nothing more than the pressure of the brush or the pencil on the canvas. Try projecting an image on a canvas, sometime, and you will understand the point I'm making. However, many old masters painted on wood panels, so this may not be a factor, at all.

When one is either sketching on a projected image or painting on it, your own hand/arm casts a shadow upon the image, thereby completely obliterating it wherever the shadow is cast.

So, if one is willing to believe that an old master painted from a dim, wobbling, fuzzy, rainbow-edged, upside-down, flopped image, projected upon a canvas in a nearly totally dark room, with the shadow from their own hand blocking out the image at times, then I say go for it!

While I don't believe that a projected image should be considered cheating, I also do not believe that old masters truly would go to that effort, when most of them were good drawers.

Bill

[dcorc]

Well said, Bill - it's difficult even with modern projection systems to use a projected image actually onto the canvas to do more than outlines for placement, and still requires rather more than basic drawing skills to use effectively.

I suspect that the truth of the matter lies somewhere between the Hockney and ARC positions - there are features, for example in Vermeer, that do strongly suggest familiarity with optical instruments - but I suspect that these were used more as ways of gaining insight, than as actual drawing aids during physically drawing or painting.

Dave

[Enchanted]

Originally Posted by dcorc

Well said, Bill ...

Hear Hear (or is it Here Here?). In any case Bill has laid it out like I wanted to but didn't think I wanted to bore anyone with the details.

Using the Camera Lucida would be a bit different than using a system of projecting the image using available light. Here is a reference to an old image of an artist using the Lucida to do a portrait:

Camera Lucida

Somewhere I've seen an even older illustration - either etching or woodblock print - of an artist using a similar device "way back when." Of course the use of this device assumes that a good quality polished lens was available.

As an aside. Here is something anyone can try if you own one of those makeup mirrors that magnify (by virtue of a concave mirror). In a darkened room with a lighted window, hold the mirror so that it reflects the light from the window onto a darkened interior wall. It will take a bit of experimenting to get the projected image into focus. The image, as Bill points out, will be upside down and backward, but it will be a relatively useful image that one could use for at least roughing in a sketch.

[WFMartin]

Dave and Jaxas,

I'm glad to learn that you agree with my assessment of the "optical device" syndrome. I have actually used the projection method a couple of times, before computers with Photoshop came into existence, where I wanted accurate proportion, shape, and placement of several images (of dogs, actually) on one canvas.

I have worked both from transparencies, and from reflective photos as references for the projection method.

Of course, it is quite simple to turn a transparency upside-down in the projector for the projected image to be presented in a rightside-up orientation on the canvas, and the modern opaque projector (at least the one I own) has a reversing mirror in it, which allows its projected image to also be rightside-up on the canvas.

Rather than considering this to have given me some sort of a special "edge" on my production of these paintings, to the contrary, I found the entire procedure to be fraught with difficulties. The angling, positioning, sizing, and focusing of the projected image in order to assure myself that the image actually had integrity with the original from which it was being projected I found to be nearly impossible.

During the sketching and outlining of this projected image on the canvas, I found the edges of objects to be extremely soft, even those emanating from a reasonably "sharp" slide, and even worse when from a photograph.

The slightest move of either the canvas or the projector at that sort of enlargement, sent the projected image bouncing all over the canvas, making each attempt at sketching extremely difficult.

And, of course the performance of these operations in a darkened room, made for a quite unhandy situation.

So, even when using modern projecting equipment, this task is difficult and frustrating, to say the least. I'm not sure early masters, most of whom could successfully draw, would bother resorting to such a laborious, tedious, and frustrating method of painting, with the idea of achieving much success in so doing.

Perhaps they experimented with the idea, such as one would with a new toy (lenses), but from a practical standpoint I can't imagine any of them dealing very seriously with it.

Bill

[vee_209]

I don't think that using photography to aid your drawing/ painting will make your art less creditable, as long as they can help expressing what you want to express. However, relying on photography alone might not make you a good draughtman, which is a very important communication skill in art. Photography doesn't help you to express things you want directly on the canvas. Lots of plannings and skills are still required.

I try to draw more and more because of this.

Vee

[Quiet]

I knew a guy once who was convinced aliens had built the great pyramids, because, as he put it, people were too stupid back then to figure out how to make such a thing.

There will always be fools who refuse to believe that humans couldn’t have done a thing because they themselves can’t do it and because they can’t believe that someone else could. Sometimes they write books. Society generally moves on without them.