This book is a description of Hockney’s theory about how Western painters as far back as the 15th century are likely to have used what he describes as “optics”, meaning lenses and mirrors, as an aid to painting accurately.
It is divided into three parts. In the first there is a description of his thesis with visual evidence, the second is a collection of documents from which he based his research and the third part is his notes, correspondence and ideas as they developed.
It’s an appealing theory and it seems more than likely that many artists often did use these optics. However, I found some of the close-ups of paintings and his description of how they prove his theory, a bit tenuous. An example is his argument comparing Giotto’s flat depiction of the folds of ornate garments compared to Moroni’s depiction, which is highly detailed and mimics the contours of the body underneath. While a drawing aid certainly could be the reason for this increase in detail, I don’t feel it is evidence enough, particularly as hundreds of years divide the two. He compares a watercolour sketch by Cezanne and a finished portrait by Ingres, arguing that Cezanne’s drapery was clearly eyeballed but the fabric in Ingres’s painting is so detailed and convincing he must have used an aid. While Hockney is correct that Ingres’s work is incredibly accurate and quite possibly this could only be achieved using an aid, it does seem that in this case he is comparing apples and oranges. A sketch from an artist who is one of the forerunners of modern art and a final oil portrait from an academic neoclassical painter a generation before.
However, as Hockney presents more and more examples in images the argument becomes more convincing. Of particular note are drawings by Ingres where on one hand some are roughly drawn and show repeated strokes where the artist “gropes” for the correct contour, in contrast to other portraits where the lines are drawn with complete certainty and confidence, as if tracing.
Hockney started out his research by creating a wall of paintings from the 15th century until the 19th and observed that the change to this greater naturalism was not gradual, rather it happened quite quickly which suggested to him a technical innovation rather than a new way of looking at the subject. This change happened around 1420-1430. There is a woodcut by Durer from 1525 depicting a frame construction being used to accurately depict a foreshortened lute, so he is suggesting that artists would use such technical aids to help them draw rather than rely on the eye. Perhaps Hans Holbien used Durer’s machine to help him paint the distorted skull in the foreground of The Ambassadors in 1533.
He suggests that Vermeer also used optics, proven by particular clues in his paintings, such as the foreground objects being out of focus and the fact he was close friends with a lens-maker. More than one vanishing point in certain other artists’ work indicates an optical device was used and moved during the process in order to refocus. Geometric patterns on carpets and tables often give this away.
Hockney compares a drawing by Van Eyck of Cardinal Niccolo Albergati, with a larger finished oil painting. He found that by enlarging the drawing, many features lined up perfectly. The ones that didn’t, all lined up perfectly together when the drawing was shifted a few mm. This precision hints at some kind of optical device.
Some paintings on his wall, as far back as 1430, contained images of a convex mirror and lenses, which proves that such lenses were in use at the time. Da Vinci himself describes the camera obscura in his notebooks.
Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Marriage famously depicts a convex mirror. Another interesting thing about the paintings is that the chandelier is painted directly without any underdrawing or corrections. Hockney points out that it is painted head-on rather than from below as you would expect and thus could have been painted using a mirror lens which dictates that the object is straight on. I would argue with this, however, to me, the angle seems from below. Perhaps the angle is too low in comparison to the other elements in the room but feasibly Van Eyck may have decided to study the chandelier separately when painting it. I’m not sure it proves the use of optics.
Hockney suggests that other paintings (such as Van Eyck, Sanchez Cotan and Carvaggio) which noticeably do not conform to single-point linear perspective and thus the artist has painted elements of the scene separately in a montage technique, could have used the mirror-lens. Again I’m not sure that this argument sticks as the paintings that he discusses are very large and it’s just as likely (if not more likely) that the artists painted each element separately from life.
He goes on to discuss distortions, where the artists has seemingly made an error and the head is to small or big in relation to the body; arms are too long; etc etc. So they clearly have been painted at different times. Could this not have just been error on the artists part? Or perhaps purposeful exaggeration of certain features for effect?
Hockney created a timeline of when, in his opinion, lens-based images were created and from around 1870, following the increasing use of photography and coinciding with the advent of impressionism, its use decreased drastically. He shows the lens-based image as the red line and the green line is the “eyeballing” tradition. Maybe it’s because I’m a scientist and therefore am used to describing data on graphs but I find his timeline very confusing, surely the use of lens-based images should be a separate line running alongside the x-axis which shows the year? My annoyance is growing!
I found this book very irritating which didn’t help win me over. I had previously seen the TV version years ago which was very well made and I was quite convinced by the argument that optics were used by the old masters. I didn’t expect this book to change my mind but it has a bit. I’m quite happy to accept that optics were used by artists and I can see that some of what Hockney discusses hints at this. What I didn’t like was Hockney’s very clumsy and unscientific way of proving this. The book jumps about and it frustrated me, I wanted to reorganise it and put it in a more logical order.
The majority of the book is taken up with Hockney’s argument, the section called “The Visual Evidence” I found very little actual evidence though, it is just a succession of paintings from a huge range of different periods and art movements. He compares early artists with later ones and cites their differences as evidence for the use of optics. Comparing works from the same artists throughout their careers is a much better way of showing a change, and he does do this briefly with Durer. However, this is fraught with dubiety as well, since artists’ styles change within their life time, or perhaps we are looking at an unfinished work or a sketch, or something more experimental.
He discusses how artists would have used lenses and optics more and more in order to keep up with others and to create such detailed works as those commissioning them would now expect. Surely if their use was so ubiquitous, however, there would be more evidence of this? It is conceivable that a few artists using optics could keep it quiet but if they all were, I find it hard to believe it wouldn’t have become more acceptable and thus documented.
His other arguments, regarding montage style multi-point perspective, highly detailed and more linear painting, shadowed light sources etc, just weren’t very convincing and could be explained by differences in style and fashion.
There are however, in amongst the filler, some very interesting and convincing examples such as Ingres clean drawings and how it’s possible to scale up sketches exactly to finished paintings but the majority is just padding in my opinion.
At the end of the book, he includes a section on Textual Evidence and his communications. The textual evidence should be the crux of this book. He should refer to these documents within the text so that his arguments can be proven, as you would in an academic paper. I’m sure this could be done subtly to make it more palatable for a wider audience if necessary. Instead, the reader gets to this section and sadly can’t be bothered to go through these texts in such a dry and detached manner. While the Communications section is interesting from a personal point of view, it doesn’t add much to the academic evidence.
I think undoubtedly there was some use of optics by the old masters, my feeling is that it probably wasn’t as prevalent as Hockney tries to suggest and his poor evidence actually serves to dissuade the reader to some extent.
Kim Appleton Art & Framing 