my favorite artist
Albrecht Durer
It is my conviction that something has been lost compared to the discoveries made during the
Renaissance and the assocaited quality of work
From Wikipedia:
My father recently put me on to the Hockney-Falco thesis. In a nutshell, the claim is that circa 1420, artists began to take advantage of lense technology, utilizing optical technology for achieving the stunning realism in their portraits. The British artist David Hockney has made an incredible contribution to art history with his research.
He made a BBC documentary "David Hockney's Secret Knowledge" regarding his findings.
From Youtube channel documentaryondemand with Spanish subtitles:
This is an excellent departure in studying Art History that is too often overlooked by many that have been led to believe that this brilliance only came "ex nihilo" from the minds of the artists. The fact that these optical advantages for painting helped to produce such great work quickly turns into a story of trade secrets. Hockney's book "The Secret Knowledge" goes into this in further detail with copius documentation going back centuries that shows the artists and opticians of the time eager to conceal what they have uncovered.
As far as the optical principles are concerned, the best illustration is that of the methods of:
Camera Lucida
Camera Obscura
descriptions of these two methods of ealry projection are below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_lucida
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura
Please use Hockney's research as a departure for your own investigations. All sorts of connections begin to emerge when one goes down the rabbit hole. I have found many myself and am looking forward to sharing more and more of them. Much more to follow!
I've read about using obtical lenses to reflect a picture of the subject onto a canvas...next to iconographic art works from the medieval period, I love the art from Renaissance period and also Art Nouveau...I love Mucha!
Thats great. Do you remember what books those were? If you haven't seen Hockney's research yet I can't recommend it enough.
No, I don't remember the books, there was a movie or documentary I watched a couple years ago as well...I will talk to my husband, he might remember.
Hi, yeah I have l known for while now about Hockney´s uncovering of this secret usage of lens technology in art history. As an artist this affected me in a number if ways. At first I was somewhat skeptical especially because one the artists he focussed a lot was Caravaggio. Caravaggio has always been a hero of mine as being one if the greatest artists of all time. So for Hockney to appear to be, in one sense, de-grading the artist brought out the defender in me. However there is no denying the truth when we see the solid evidence put right in your face and it is pretty clear that Caravaggio used a camera Obscura. I must admit I felt a somewhat let down and had a bit of a sulk about it the whole thing for a while about it all. However out of this knowledge brought forth new thoughts. It might be true that Caravaggio used lens technology to create their work but does that make their work any less meaningful or less valuable in art history? Of course not. I mean a lens might help you to draw out the composition but it will not paint it for you. There are two types of artists, those that love to draw and those that love to paint. Caravaggio loved painting. The lens was a gift for him because it shortened the time taken in drawing out in order for him to get to do the activity that made him feel alive.