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Did Great Artists Trace Their Masterpieces With Optics? By Amanda Onion ABCNEWS.com 12-5-1
The clues could be as subtle as a tiny scratch made with a needle. Sometimes they were more obvious like the smooth, unhesitating lines that outlined a figure.
Combined, Philadelphia Museum of Art curator Mark Tucker believes it's clear that the great 19th-century American painter Thomas Eakins had a secret technique for achieving the remarkable realism often praised in his work: he traced from photographs.
And recent science suggests he was not alone.
According to the collaborative work of an artist and surface scientist, artists dating as far back as 1430 traced their images from optical projections of photographs or real life.
"We want to unambiguously prove that artists used lenses way back in 1430, so then every artist since then is suspect," explained Charles Falco, a surface scientist at the University of Arizona. "People who have not seen the visual evidence are skeptical. But once I show them, they are converted."
Bach With a Tape Recorder?
Some art historians have felt affronted by the claims. They argue that a year or two of scientific analysis can't possibly topple the decades of analysis by art scholars that barely mentions such tracing techniques.
"It's like saying Bach had a tape recorder and recorded noises from the forest for his music," said Walter Liedtke, curator of European painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. "It's ridiculous."
To detect the use of tracing in Eakins' work, Tucker and his colleague Nica Gutman used infrared reflectography to examine the pencil drawings underneath the paint of Eakins' works. An infrared reflectography camera detects infrared light that's shined on a painting and reflected by paint layers.
Outlines of etchings used under a painting appear black on the camera's screen since these materials absorb the light.
When examining some works like Eakins' "Shad Fishing at Gloucester on the Delaware River," (1881) Tucker and Gutman noticed that the underdrawings were made up of "unhesitating" lines that had "unmistakable traced qualities" to them.
Furthermore, Eakins' smooth lines perfectly matched photographs the team recovered from Eakins' estate. Tucker believes the artist traced the photographs by projecting the images onto his canvas using a primitive, slide projector-like instrument called a magic lantern.
Connect-the-Dot
In other works, such as "Sailboats Racing on the Delaware" (1874), the Philadelphia team used a stereo microscope (a microscope with two eyepieces) to detect very fine markings made in several paint layers of the work.
Tucker believes Eakins made the small marks from projected images to mark coordinates for his drawings. He then used the coordinates to "connect the dots" and draw the scene.
"These marks didn't just occur in the lower layers of the paint," said Tucker. "We found them in low layers and even in very late stages of the painting."
Sometimes Eakins traced from one photograph, but more commonly, Tucker believes, the artist act as an editor and traced images from multiple photographs that he projected one by one onto his paintings.
Although artists openly use all kinds of projection methods today to create their art (Andy Warhol once championed such techniques in his "Factory" studio), it appears Eakins may have wanted to keep it under wraps.
In one work, for example, the curators noticed Eakins used a tiny spot of touch-up paint to hide a needle-thin scratch mark that had likely served as a coordinate. And when asked if Eakins had used photographs as models, the artist's widow asserted her late husband preferred using real life as his model, according to Tucker.
"Critics were ambivalent about whether this was a legitimate technique or not," said Tucker. "So I think there was a lot of pressure on Eakins not to divulge."
In fact, Eakins might have been doing what artists have done for centuries.
Tracing in the 15th Century
For the past few years, surface scientist Falco and artist David Hockney, have acted as art detectives looking for signs that artists from as far back as the 1400s used projections to trace their work. Hockney recently authored a book on the subject, Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, in which he proposes the introduction of optical tools led to an increase in realism in art starting with the 15th century.
Falco explains that images projected by a camera or more primitive device (like a slide projector-like instrument called a camera obscura or a concave mirror) have qualities that could never be observed without the aid of an optical tool.
Vanishing points, for example, are where parallel lines appear to converge in an image (the way railroad tracks appear to join in the distance, for example). Paintings with more than one vanishing point, says Falco, suggest they were modeled on more than one projected image.
Much like Eakins may have used projections of multiple photographs in his work, earlier artists may have traced multiple images on their canvases.
Another clue is the depth of field in a painting. When projected by a lens, objects in the background appear fuzzy, while those in the foreground are clear. Falco says many early works have this quality, which could never be seen by the naked eye of the artist.
Still, Falco and others emphasize that even if artists used tools to trace their work, their reputations as masters are hardly diminished.
"Optics might have helped certain artists achieve certain results with greater facility, but it's still not easy," said Gary Tinterow, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "You still have to be an artist to conceive a composition and execute it. These devices don't do that for you, they're just tools."
-------------------- Jackson Smart Jackson's Signs Port Angeles, WA ...."The Straits of Juan De Fuca in my front yard and Olympic National Park in my backyard...
"Living on Earth is expensive...but it does include a free trip around the Sun"
Posts: 1001 | From: Port Angeles, Washington | Registered: Jan 1999
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some people will do anything to get their name on a published document....
-------------------- joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-637-1519 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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If the author had read in depth at all on the technical approaches of the early masters & their pratices there is plenty of literature mentioning tools such as the camera obscura.Earlier on there were strings stretched in a grid on a frame thru which the artist viewed his subject in order to repropduce acurately the images he or she sought to reproduce.
Many of the "masters" used these & every other tool they could lay their hands on to produce a better product for their clientel.There is evidence of Michelangelo using patterns(at the time they were termed "cartoons"} as we know them.Traditionally artists have been known to use many devices & rules to technically illustrate that which the eye percives to translate 3d to 2d on paper,canvas and scale it for reproduction.
Sculptors have for centuries used scaling devices to accurately reproduce dimensions from scaled models & actual objects or people.
There are many documented uses of tools that the lay person would consider "cheating" thru out the history of art, all one needs to do is study up on the subject, and read beyond the dimestore how to paint/draw/sculpt hobby books.
On a last note,...once a professor told me ,...a tool is no better than the person using it,...we would still be painting with our fingers & sticks if some aspiring artist had not invented the paint brush,...
[ December 06, 2001: Message edited by: timi NC ]
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Of WHAT? Working SMART? Reminds me of the person seeing me use a paper pattern on a window lettering job. Then acussing me of "cheating" he,he,he I didn't know there was a TEST going on,as the one hiring me to do the job just wanted it done RIGHT. Boy I sure do hope these Art Detectives find out for sure so they can see just how dumb people with no art ability can make statements like... "you do that FREEHAND"
-------------------- PKing is Pat King The Professor of SIGNOLOGY Posts: 3113 | From: Pompano Beach, FL. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Ive got a questoin for you guys . I have never had any formal training in art so I dont Know. Is it allright to use a projector to do paintings and does the finished product loose respect if this is found to be a tool used.If it doesnt why do all of your how to books leave this information out. I have a book that rubs me wrong. It has alot of great info but it leaves out this option. My bitch is that alot of the work in it is drawings that start out as a projected drawing. The book is how to draw cars like a pro by Thom Tayler. Alot of the drawings are strait out of Hot Rod. Page 60 is acover of a 80s Hot rod with Rod Saborys 67 vett. If you put the cover on the projector it lines up with the so called sketch. Being self tought I fell that I sould be covering my projector when someone walks in my shop. How do you guys fell about this.
-------------------- Ryan Young Indocil Art & Design indocil@comporium.net 803-980-6765
I highjacked Letterville!! Winter Muster 2004 Posts: 904 | From: Rock Hill, SC | Registered: Sep 2001
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I suppose we have all used tools in the past for creating, and I as a fine artist, have used grids like described by Timi. Mostly for portraiture, just to get down some correct parameters to start with. Believe me when I say their is still plenty of fine art that will follow. As a painter all tools except the brush and knife are layed aside once a simple layout is produced. These simple layouts allow you to paint with more confidence, (without trying to thin the face to cover too small of nose). Once you have made an error that you cannot recognize in a portrait, then you are into "compensation" for it in other areas. As you become more experienced, you need less tools and reference, but all artists use some to several. Have you even tried drawing over an opaque projection. The only thing that you could possibly get down well is a respectable outline. If the artist doesn't eventually outgrow most of it, then they have pretty much stated their rank.
[ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: bronzeo ]
-------------------- "Don't change horses in midstream, unless you spot one with longer legs" bronzeo oti Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801 www.imagemakerart.com jack@imagemakerart.com Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
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Drawing from scratch really does show. Using a photo or a system is almost always noticeable in some way or another. When done from the hip, the images just have some occular perspective which the camera does not capture. The eyeball is round and the picture plane is flat.
Sure, it is ok to use whatever tool is needed, but for some artists, the look has to be from the hip and not from the camera. It is not always about verisimitude, but more at expression. Leonardo used a Gerber 4A and Piero della Francisco used a Polaroid Obscura? Not hardly, but again, they took their images way past where it was just the capture of some visual information and attests to why we even know about these guys 500 years hence. Ever see all-caps Brush script? The idea is sound, but who can read it? It is the same thing. Some visual things are better left visual and not auditory.
-------------------- Preston McCall 10305 Eby st. Overland Park, KS 66212 text: 5056607370
Posts: 1562 | From: Overland Park, KS | Registered: Nov 1998
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-------------------- Bill Riedel Riedel Sign Co., Inc. 15 Warren Street Little Ferry, N.J. 07643 billsr@riedelsignco.com Posts: 2953 | From: Little Ferry, New Jersey, USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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