Fri Jan 20 19:19:04 EST 2012 Bob W wrote: > > From: pdml-bounces at pdml.net [mailto:pdml-bounces at pdml.net] On > > Behalf Of > > Igor Roshchin > > > I suspect Paul knows this, but in case other people don't... > > > > A few years ago, a physicist Charles Falco in collaboration > > with David Hockney (artist and art historian), has demonstrated > > that a lot of renaissance artists were using lenses and mirrors > > to project images - so that they can paint some elements of the > > picture over the projected image. This is called "Hockney-Falco" > > thesis. > > > > You can read more about this here: > > http://www.optics.arizona.edu/ssd/art-optics/index.html > > > > I heard several talks/lectures of Charlie, and even had a chance of > > hosting one of them at Texas A&M University. > > While some art historians might disagree (they think that > > Falco-Hockney > > are trying to take down the importance of the particular classical > > artists, which is not the case), as a scientist, I am very much > > convinced by the arguments made by these guys. > > I have a very good book called Vermeer's Camera in which the author puts > forward his argument for the idea that Vermeer used a camera obscura. There > is a web page to accompany it: http://www.vermeerscamera.co.uk/home.htm > > There are contemporary pictures that show draughtmen using various > optical devices as drawing aids since at least the Renaissance. > >
Bob, yes, that book is also talking about the same idea. Falco in his online essay (see the link above), references Steadman's book a few times. While I am not an expert on the history of the topic, it looks like Steadman's book came out in 2001, which is after the first publication by Falco-Hockney in 2000. Actually, the argument used by Falco to prove his point is based on something that is close to what we are dealing in the photography: properties of optics, e.g. why an image (e.g. portrait) taken with a 100 mm lens is not the same as that taken with a 31 mm lens at a closer distance (hence resulting in overall the same size of the image). It is the difference in the perspective and where the vanishing point is. Many artists, actually were using either a lens or a mirror to do the projection, moving it to better project different portions of the image, - hence - multiple vanishing points in the paintings. Note, that besides "camera obscura", there "camera lucida" has also been used by artists as a tool for drawing. (see, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_lucida ) There is a curious fact: Falco attributes some of his initial intuition in recognizing the optics-aided paintings to his experience in photography (in the middle of the page: http://www.optics.arizona.edu/SSD/art-optics/personal.html Cheers, Igor Cheers, Igor -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
