July 15, 2004

• This reminds me of the time I found out that Ramanujan used Mathematica to derive his theorems.
• Why RXR should not be taken seriously: He thinks Rembrandt and Bougereau were painters of the early Renaissance. /snark
• So what? Artists have always used whatever technology that was available to create the best work that they could. It's obvious from sketchbooks and less 'finished' works that these people could draw the pants of anyone, so what's the biggie? Vermeer used a camera obscura (or projector, if you prefer) to get his fantastically accurate interiors. Hockney created some iconic and beautiful works using a modern version - the camera (or magic box for capturing souls and hoodwinking gallery goers, if you will). Hockney is not saying these people couldn't draw, he's simply drawing our attention to the close relationship between physics, science and art that all artists, especially Renaissance artists, have understood and exploited since they noticed crushing up red rocks and smearing it on the walls made pretty patterns. Sorry for being so unfluffy, but the opening statement of this post just seems to be too mean on everyone's favourite deaf Yorkshireman to let it pass. Please forgive.
• There is some good evidence to suggest that the technology was known and used by the great masters, but draughtsmanship was a high art in itself, highly regarded and absolutely necessary to master long before a painter was even allowed to execute a canvas alone. Mind you, execution of a painting's layout, particularly by such great experimenters as Leonardo, certainly would have been based upon several different canny techniques - this particularly so during the Rennaissance, a time of huge technological and intellectual advance -- all of which can be (and has been) traced in chronological step by step process historically. Commentators of these eras documented them. The profound lack of contemporary documentation supporting Hockney's theory is in fact what tends to demolish it, as far as I can see, not the idea itself. Camera Obscura was probably employed in studies, it may even have played a key role in establishing the law of perspective for figurative artists, but that doesn't mean the great masters couldn't draw at all, of course. It's important not to get offended by the idea, that our sacred cows are being besmirched by the concept. These were tremendous creative minds, open to lots of things. One must realise that Hockney was *always* a profoundly eccentric artist and commentator - but his odd theories are by no means unique in the field of Art History. There are many bizarre and unlikely theories that used to be trumped out as mainstream teaching, years ago, and probly now. For example, Wilhelm Fraenger's conpiracy theories to account for Hieronymous Bosch's unique style, and the creation of this idea of the 'Brothers & Sisters of the Free Spirit' to account for the plethora of weird imagery that permeates his work; that he was a member of some bizarre occult order with it's own internal language of symbols hidden in his paintings. What utter tosh. Or that El Greco had some sort of eye disorder which accounted for the odd elongation of his human figures. This was actually taken seriously at one time. Think about it.. if El Greco saw everything stretched tall & thin, what would he have seen when he looked at his own paintings? :D It doesn't mean we shouldn't take Hockney seriously. We mustn't throw the baby out with the bathwater; he's a tremendously important artist. He was no more crazy than Dali, and certainly no less brilliant. It, at most, just means he was wrong, that's all. There's lots of other balderdash like that in art theory. I'm sure the Great Masters did indeed use myriad different approaches to establish their techniques, camera obscura/camera lucida among them, IMHO, but just not to the exclusion of all else. I wonder how Hockney thinks this could have been employed for frescos? Really wouldn't make much sense, if you look at the way they were actually done.
• To summarize: Hockney is an ass. Or arse. Choose one.
• He certainly had a great fondness for arse, of that we can be sure.
• Yay! All art historical and theoretical debate abandoned in favour of arse jokes. That's why I love teh interweb...
• don't know about this theory. some of it makes sense in some ways - camera obscura, for example, gives you a pretty damn good representation (albeit upside down) of a chiaroscuro painting. brightly lit subjects, obscure and darkened background. might have influenced the style, sure, but tracing everything? i've tried tracing things before. with no artistic talent, you're left with a tracing that you can't do anything with, without revealing your lack of talent. try it yourself... you'll see why people objected to this theory. tracing paper, pencil, then try to use colors (marker, paint, whatever) to fill it in. unless you're good you'll end up with a paint-by-number.
• AFAIK Hockney is correct in his suggestion that optics were used by Rennaisance artists. This does not detract from the artists memories one iota.
• Oh sure... and next you'll try telling us that they had interns helping them, too! Heresy!
• His theory boils down to: I can't draw like that; therefore they couldn't do it either. He knew that his PR stunt theory would horrify the art elite. Thumbing his nose at the old masters is no way to gain credibility in those circles. He even took to wearing a T-shirt announcing, "I Know I'm Right." musingmelpomene- From this day forward, I solemnly promise to re-read edits before hitting the "Post" button. Damn these quick hands.
• Ouch, ouch, my straw men hurt, at least from that first link. See, until that last bit of backpeddling, where Yoder admits that yes, many of these artists did use optical devices in creating their works, his main arguments are that because the Great MASTERS of the TIMES OF YORE are so much better than Hockney, then they can't have relied on optical devices. Hockney's theory, when laid out without his obvious exaggeration, is that the verifiable and historically agreed-upon increase in the quality of optics was a big part of the increase in realism observable in Renaissance art. And, y'know what, it was. The repeated attempts to say "Michaelangelo wasn't a goddamn tracer, Blanky!" instead of looking for actual evidence one way or another seem to characterize the vicious and extreme reaction (and by the way, those Good Art folks are a bunch of fucktards, and new realists are piss-poor artists, even if they are good technicians. But art is more than illustration) against Hockney. The way that advances in optics helped was to make it easier to sketch with increased detail. That allowed these men, WHO WERE GREAT ENOUGH ARTISTS NOT TO NEED YODER'S FAWNING DEFENSE, to advance their craft more rapidly than without these optical devices. Gerhard Richter (a far better photorealist than anything Yoder would have us see), Michaelangelo and Da Vinci all used optical devices, and have all copied images from other artists. Does that mean any of them are lesser artists? No.
• That would be "Bouguereau", I think.
• In this article physicist Charles Falco describes how Lorenzo Lotto probably used lenses to paint Husband and Wife.
• Thumbing his nose at the old masters is no way to gain credibility in those circles. I don't know...