A few years ago, I received a wonderful present from Rachel, a book by David Hockney called Sercet Knowledge in which he proposes a radical hypothesis: many old masters in Art were tracers! Working with the physicist Charles Falco, Hockney suggests that lenses were used to project images onto the canvas to aid the sketching process. This effectively is taking a photo, but instead of processing the image with chemicals, which came in the late 19th century, the artists simply used their hands to "process" and capture the image. After the advance of photography (with chemicals!), however, artists moved away from optics and experimented with other forms in order to picture the world.
In a letter republished here, Hockney writes:
What we call reality in pictures seems to be the optical projection, a European way of lookin at the world, that accepts a world seen from a single point. This has taken me sometime to see. But when you see it, it won't go away, it becomes more and more obvious.
Here is a summary of their hypothesis, with supporting images - especially the striking comparison of a Byzantine Christ Pantocrator circa 1150 and van Gogh's Portrait of Tubac (1889) at the bottom of the page.
Such bold hypothesis of course has generated debates. Interesting points are raised, some technical, some historical and some cultural ("...there is a tremendous desire on the part of readers, journalists, and people who visit museums to understand the Old Masters once and for all. The optical tricks listed in Hockney's book promise to make that possible...I will even make a prediction: in twenty years, by 2020, Hockney's claims will be part of first-year art history textbooks regardless of the critical consensus").
I think the Hockney-Falco conjecture is bold and challenging. The fact that the old masters may have used optical devices to help them create beautiful art should not undermine their importance. To use scientific, albeit basic, propositions to understand art history provides a fresh approach. I also like the commercialisation of the thesis, in the form of a glossy hardback book, endorsed by a famous contemporary artist - good, technical ideas shouldn't be restricted to peer-reviewed journals.
Two related notes: 1. The Filter^'s wives are good at choosing "arty" presents (here for an other example); 2. WebExhibits, which hosts a site on the "optics debate", is a great site about science and culture - highly recommended.
There is now abundant counter-evidence -- from a wide range of scholars in the history of optics, history of art, optical science, and image analysis -- that the bold claims of David Hockney and Charles Falco cannot be supported. While the scholarly community was caught off guard by the media onslaught and extraordinary media advantage of Mr. Hockney and his public relations experts, the slow, careful analysis of experts who follow accepted protocol of expert peer-review journal articles rather than broad popular presentations in the popular media, are rebutting piece by piece each of the bold claims of Hockney. Two sites that should be consulted by anyone interested in the scholarly analysis of Hockney are:
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~stork/FAQs.html
and
http://www.diatrope.com
--David G. Stork
Posted by: David G. Stork | May 07, 2004 at 01:44 AM