This just made my day
Jan. 19th, 2005 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockHockney 'was wrong' over art copying claim:
In his 2001 book Secret Knowledge, Hockney set out to show that the heightened realism of many Renaissance paintings was achieved by projecting images of the subject onto the canvas, which the artists then traced. This would have required artists to use a device such as a camera obscura.
But Hockney's theory is contentious among both art historians and physicists. It implies that from around 1420 artists were using sophisticated optics to project images onto the surfaces they were painting. Yet it was not until hundreds of years later, in the early 18th century, that artists like the Venetian Canaletto are generally acknowledged to have used such projectors. "The issues I raised have disturbed some people," Hockney says.
But next week, Stanford University physicist and art historian David Stork, who has been a fierce critic of Hockney's idea, will present evidence at the Electronic Imaging Conference in San Jose, California, that he believes show Hockney is wrong.
Stork has used computer imaging software to analyse the shadows in Georges de la Tour's 1645 painting Christ in the Carpenter's Studio (right) in a bid to plot the direction and intensity of the light illuminating the scene. This allowed him to determine whether the candle in Christ's hand was the only source of light. To illuminate the scene brightly enough to project it onto the canvas, de la Tour would have needed an external light source, probably the sun,
Stork claims his analysis shows that a candle was indeed the only light source in the scene. He also says that given the type of lenses or concave mirrors available at the time, the brightness in the scene would have been reduced around 1000-fold at the canvas, making any projected image all but impossible to see and trace, unless several dozen oil lamps or hundreds of candles lit the scene. As well as showing that the shadows cast can be plotted back to the candle, Stork's software indicates that the way light rays are reflected off Joseph's head are consistent with the candle being de la Tour's only light source.
Oh I will be such a happy, happy camper if that Hockney moron's theory can finally be dismissed as the rubbish it is, and it sounds like that day may not be too far off. *happy sigh*
In his 2001 book Secret Knowledge, Hockney set out to show that the heightened realism of many Renaissance paintings was achieved by projecting images of the subject onto the canvas, which the artists then traced. This would have required artists to use a device such as a camera obscura.
But Hockney's theory is contentious among both art historians and physicists. It implies that from around 1420 artists were using sophisticated optics to project images onto the surfaces they were painting. Yet it was not until hundreds of years later, in the early 18th century, that artists like the Venetian Canaletto are generally acknowledged to have used such projectors. "The issues I raised have disturbed some people," Hockney says.
But next week, Stanford University physicist and art historian David Stork, who has been a fierce critic of Hockney's idea, will present evidence at the Electronic Imaging Conference in San Jose, California, that he believes show Hockney is wrong.
Stork has used computer imaging software to analyse the shadows in Georges de la Tour's 1645 painting Christ in the Carpenter's Studio (right) in a bid to plot the direction and intensity of the light illuminating the scene. This allowed him to determine whether the candle in Christ's hand was the only source of light. To illuminate the scene brightly enough to project it onto the canvas, de la Tour would have needed an external light source, probably the sun,
Stork claims his analysis shows that a candle was indeed the only light source in the scene. He also says that given the type of lenses or concave mirrors available at the time, the brightness in the scene would have been reduced around 1000-fold at the canvas, making any projected image all but impossible to see and trace, unless several dozen oil lamps or hundreds of candles lit the scene. As well as showing that the shadows cast can be plotted back to the candle, Stork's software indicates that the way light rays are reflected off Joseph's head are consistent with the candle being de la Tour's only light source.
Oh I will be such a happy, happy camper if that Hockney moron's theory can finally be dismissed as the rubbish it is, and it sounds like that day may not be too far off. *happy sigh*
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 08:12 pm (UTC)And I adore you for it.
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Date: 2005-01-19 09:56 pm (UTC)And I adore you for it.
It probably seems a bit silly to be so vexed about this, but I spent years doing honest to goodness Art History and to see some yahoo show up and try to tell me all the works I'd most admired were based on some silly light show trick...grr...
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 08:54 am (UTC)(PS: Wow, a non-sexy Phantom. That hasn't happened for a while.)
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Date: 2005-01-20 04:47 pm (UTC)Old school, hard-core, lookin' like a skeleton Phantom is my personal fave :)
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Date: 2005-01-19 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 09:57 pm (UTC)Guilty as charged :)
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Date: 2005-01-19 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 03:07 pm (UTC)Yes, I think Ellie the Hottie Art Geek has a nice ring to it. Just don't make it into an acronym.
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Date: 2005-01-20 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 06:33 pm (UTC)And I don't know about you, but I like the sounds of ganging up on Ebonlock, if you're up for it.
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Date: 2005-01-19 08:29 pm (UTC)I guess my teachers thought it was a crackpot theory, too!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 09:59 pm (UTC)I guess my teachers thought it was a crackpot theory, too!
I'd heard vague rumblings about the book and then started seeing "news" programs like 60 Minutes covering this nonsense and I started to fume. I was tempted to check the book out of the library just so I could have the pleasure of flinging it across the room from time to time.