Theory about why artists suddenly learned to paint during the Renaissance

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For a long time, scientists and artists have been discussing the question of how painters in the Renaissance suddenly began to succeed in incredibly realistic paintings. One of the possible explanations is the use of the latest optical devices for that time. Disputes about the fact that the great masters of the past may have been a little "cheated" by sketching the contours of the image from their projections still do not subside. The famous British artist David Hockney added fuel to the fire in the 2000s, who conducted a number of experiments and confirmed this "conspiracy" theory.

The classic of British art, who in recent years is considered the most expensive and best-selling artist in the world, about 20 years ago, suddenly thought about the phenomenon of Renaissance painting. Why, in fact, until this time, artists in principle painted fairly flat paintings, clearly not having an idea of the perspective, and suddenly suddenly begin to create incredibly realistic masterpieces. It all started with the fact that a modern genius suddenly had the idea to examine the drawings of the old master Auguste Dominique Ingres under a magnifying glass. This artist is much later, he lived in the 19th century, but is a prominent representative of the French academic school. While trying to unravel the mystery of his incredibly realistic work, Hockney suddenly noticed a similarity in the drawing of Ingres' lines with some of Andy Warhol's works. And I must say that the leader of pop art sometimes very prosaically "dabbled" in his work - he projected photographs onto canvas and redrawn them. For example, the famous portrait of Mao was created. Hockney suggested that Ingres created his drawings using a camera lucida. This device with the help of a prism made it possible to obtain an optical illusion of the drawn image on paper. The artist could only trace it and finish painting the details. The device was described by Johannes Kepler at the beginning of the 17th century, but it was constructed only 200 years later.

Hockney became interested in this issue and conducted a real scientific research: he collected many reproductions of the works of old masters and hung them on the wall, placing them according to the time of creation, and regions - north at the top, south at the bottom. After analyzing the level of realism of the paintings, David saw a sharp "turning point" at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries. It was logical to assume that the reason could be the optical devices invented at that time. The camera-lucida disappeared, since it was patented only in 1807, but since the time of Aristotle, a simpler device was known that also allows one to obtain image projections - this is the camera obscura, the famous prototype of the camera.

The camera obscura is mentioned as far back as the 5th-4th century BC. NS. - the followers of the Chinese philosopher Mo-tzu described the appearance of an inverted image on the wall of a darkened room. This is the principle of operation of such devices. Light rays reflecting off brightly lit objects pass through a small hole, the edges of which serve as a lens, and create an inverted image. When properly set up, objects can be reflected and outlined on a wall in a dark room. This is what the original cameras looked like - they were large enough devices that were used while inside.

In ancient times, such dark tents were used to observe astronomical phenomena (eclipses of the sun, for example). Scientists believe that the first camera obscura was adapted for the needs of painting, of course, by Leonardo da Vinci, because it was he who described it in detail in his "Treatise on Painting". 150 years after the great genius of the Renaissance, this device was made portable and equipped with a lens - now the camera was a small wooden box. A mirror installed in it at an angle projected the image onto a matte horizontal plate, which made it possible to transfer the image to paper. It is known that it was precisely such a camera that Jan Vermeer used in his work.

To confirm his guess, David Hockney recruited physicist Charles Falco to work, proceeded to practical experiments and tried to reproduce, using the same optical devices, a fragment of Jan Van Eyck's painting "Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple". Taking only one chandelier for work, the artist found its analogue and tried to paint using the same technical devices that the artists had in 1434, it was at this time that the painting was created. He succeeded only by using a curved mirror as a lens. However, it was precisely such a mirror that was depicted in the picture, so the united team of artists, physicists and historians was very pleased with the results of their research.

This theory still has opponents, but today it can be considered practically proven that the revolutionary leap in painting, which today is associated with the Renaissance, actually occurred largely thanks to the latest optical devices for that time, which "taught" the artists draw objects in perspective. By the way, the next step in the development of art is considered to be the invention of photography. After a person's desire to capture reality as authentically as possible was thus satisfied, painting was able to free itself from the shackles of realism and began to move in the opposite direction, but this, of course, is a completely different story.