Caravaggio: Was he the world's earliest photographer?

[Marco B]

Dürer wasn't just drawing, but analyzing perspective to better understand how it works. You no doubt have noticed that in some of the Dürer examples, the eye is positioned well above the center of the grid, giving the same effect as dropping the front on a view camera.

Do you mean like a perspective with 3 vanishing points, one of the most difficult to get right?

The intersector is a great tool for understanding how perspective works. When I taught the view camera I had the students make pinholes and an intersector which they attached to the front standard of the camera, and a stick on the rear standard to locate the eye.

What is the "intersector" and stick you talk about. Do you know a website that shows some image of this device. :confused: I do understand the rest of the explanation about the different bellows lengths, and the influence on the relationship between subject and background, but I am not familiar with the "intersector" as such...

These days, some very interesting work is being done using perspective. Gillian Brown has been painting from photographs right on the location where the original photographs were made: http://www.gillianbrown.com/JillStairs-1.htm. These works must be viewed from a particular point to make any sense at all.

Holy cow! Talking about drawing perspective... Thanks for that link. However, I guess the trick here is to project the image using a slide or digital projector, and than draw the outlines on the 3D surface... pretty much what is described for Caravaggio, just that he didn't use a 3D canvas... how else would you get this ever right? Even so, there is a lot of skill involved, because almost everything will be "stretched" out, making it difficult to judge what you do... probably lot's of walking around back to the projection / viewpoint to check if it's going right.

 

[Vincent Brady]

I have always thought that Caravaggio was the first practitioner of "the decisive moment" having seeing several of his paintings.

 

[Bob F.]

On a related note, one of the reasons WH Fox Talbot gave for developing his process was that he could not draw. Even using a camera lucida, his drawing were hopeless, a situation made all the more frustrating by the fact that his wife was an accomplished artist.

So, the technically skilled painter may not need the assistance of an optical aid, but even with it the unaccomplished are still left floundering: "for when the eye was removed from the prism—in which all looked beautiful—I found that the faithless pencil had only left traces on the paper melancholy to behold".

This being the case, I wonder why so many cling as an act of faith to the idea that "real" artists did not use such aides - it was only one more bow in their armoury.

 

[Larry Bullis]

Do you mean like a perspective with 3 vanishing points, one of the most difficult to get right?

I guess that would be it now that you mention it. That's exactly what we do when we move the lens and back away from the same shared axis. I hadn't thought of that.

What is the "intersector" and stick you talk about. Do you know a website that shows some image of this device. :confused: I do understand the rest of the explanation about the different bellows lengths, and the influence on the relationship between subject and background, but I am not familiar with the "intersector" as such...

In the Dürer illustration that I linked before, the device that the artist is using is an intersector. What you can't see in the image is the grid of strings or wires that divides up the opening into equal squares such as we use to enlarge or reduce manually. The stick (and there is a word for this that I can't remember offhand- let me tell you, if I haven't already, getting old really sucks!) serves to position the eye in a location that it can return to. That is the problem with using the pencil to establish proportion and perspective; you can't leave it in place and be sure you are measuring the various things out there consistent one to another. It moves around. More importantly, the eye moves around. If the eye is positioned on the axis perpendicular to the center of the field, you have the view of a standard camera. By moving the stick one way or another, you are doing the same thing we do when we use the rise/fall/shift. If you were to tilt the frame, you would get the equivalent of swing/tilt.

By the way, Van Gogh reported building one of these devices out of reeds and using it in Arles.

The eye must be held in the same position in order for the perspective to remain the same. If its position changes, the perspective is a different perspective. Some of my pinhole cameras, the ones I have the most fun with, have a locus of projection that is utterly impossible to replicate with the eye, because in order to see what the camera would see, you'd need to turn your head, which, of course, alters the perspective. I like these because I must visualize the perspective in the abstract. A surprise every time.

Holy cow! Talking about drawing perspective... Thanks for that link. However, I guess the trick here is to project the image using a slide or digital projector, and than draw the outlines on the 3D surface... pretty much what is described for Caravaggio, just that he didn't use a 3D canvas... how else would you get this ever right? Even so, there is a lot of skill involved, because almost everything will be "stretched" out, making it difficult to judge what you do... probably lot's of walking around back to the projection / viewpoint to check if it's going right.

Laurie is brilliant, in my book. I'm sure that she left the projector on outside the door, and layed out the painting without moving anything. There is a guy on the web somewhere who has been doing paintings somewhat like this on the street. Maybe someone has the link. Worth looking for.

oops, edit. In saying "outside the door" I was thinking of the office image. In the one I linked, no door needed, just a location for the projector.

If you haven't got Eric Renner's book Pinhole Photography: rediscovering a [sic] historic technique I'd certainly recommend it. Eric has made an amazingly thorough study of this stuff.

 

[wayne naughton]

I have always thought that Caravaggio was the first practitioner of "the decisive moment" having seeing several of his paintings.

Absolutely, he painted very quickly, painted in oils and without artifice. I reckon his more dramatic use of chiaroscuro was also a product of his desire to capture the 'moment'. It's funny, from what i've read HCB never wanted to be a photographer, didn't like the process and was pretty much a 'frustrated' painter for his whole career.

I wonder if Caravaggio would have been a photographer if he had been born into the early 20th century? Maybe he would of.......


wayne

 

[2F/2F]

I have always thought that Caravaggio was the first practitioner of "the decisive moment" having seeing several of his paintings.

Correct, although not the "first". One of the Baroque style's most used, and most defining characteristics was the exploration of this concept. Caravaggio is simply the style's best-known contributor (painting-wise anyhow). Much Baroque work was very photographic not only as far as spatial perception, but in the way that it depicted a fleeting moment as frozen and capable of being examined...though with emotional impact as the focus, not just the raw, technical realism of Renaissance work. It was sort of like the Renaissance artists discovered and provided the tools, and the Baroque artists figured out how best to use them to affect people. Where Renaissance work was literally and visually realistic (in most cases - NOT Michelangelo's Neoplatonic approach), and focused on subject matter, Baroque work was emotionally realistic, and focused on attempting to tickle the viewers emotions by placing the viewer into the scene both "physically" and emotionally. If you ask me, the concepts explored by Impressionism are similar as well, though the techniques may be different. Impressionism is also reactionary to photography. It attempts to capture the essence of a single moment figuratively; not literally like photography could now do.

 

[phritz phantom]

IMO, It is just theory without proof.

I think David Hockney was the first to come up with this idea and he became quite popular
Other side of the coin - http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2004/Hockney/yoder1.asp

this is really just an angry, low blow attack on hockney, probably by a frustrated painter.
"hockney can't draw" / "hockney belittles the genius of old painters" - therefor he must be false.
i don't know at all if hockney's theory is true or not, but hockney presented his case way better than this guy his rebuttal.

 

[Larry Bullis]

What is the "intersector" and stick you talk about. Do you know a website that shows some image of this device. :confused: I do understand the rest of the explanation about the different bellows lengths, and the influence on the relationship between subject and background, but I am not familiar with the "intersector" as such...

Marco, here's a better example of the intersector: http://naturalpigments.com/education/images/draughtsman_dtl.jpg

 

[Marco B]

This being the case, I wonder why so many cling as an act of faith to the idea that "real" artists did not use such aides - it was only one more bow in their armoury.

That's not what I said. I find it perfectly acceptable if an artist would use such aids, it's just that I wanted to make clear that not all artists need them... And that it is very likely that an accomplished artist like Caravaggio was perfectly capable of doing without to create the paintings he made, so the argument used by the Italian researcher to backup his statement in favour of usage of such devices by Caravaggio is simply weak.

 

[Marco B]

Marco, here's a better example of the intersector: http://naturalpigments.com/education/images/draughtsman_dtl.jpg

Thanks for the link, that explains it all... nice little drawing.

 

[wayne naughton]

I suppose you could get a copy of 'the draughtsman's contract' out of the video shop, Marco..... the 'intersector' is rather a central motif throughout the film if i am not mistaken....grin

http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/films...s/twoclassicfilmsbypetergreenaway.photo01.jpg

 

[Bob F.]

That's not what I said. I find it perfectly acceptable if an artist would use such aids, it's just that I wanted to make clear that not all artists need them... And that it is very likely that an accomplished artist like Caravaggio was perfectly capable of doing without to create the paintings he made, so the argument used by the Italian researcher to backup his statement in favour of usage of such devices by Caravaggio is simply weak.

I wasn't referring to you Marco, or anyone else in particular - just making a general point, which is actually very colse to yours. There are any number of commentators online and elsewhere who seem to think that suggesting artists may have used optical aides is some kind of attack on their validity as artists. Just making the point that it isn't a question of them needing to use them, just that if they did, it was simply as another tool and that using one, does not suddenly make an indifferent artist into a great one.

 

[Vincent Brady]

Correct, although not the "first". One of the Baroque style's most used, and most defining characteristics was the exploration of this concept. Caravaggio is simply the style's best-known contributor (painting-wise anyhow). Much Baroque work was very photographic not only as far as spatial perception, but in the way that it depicted a fleeting moment as frozen and capable of being examined...though with emotional impact as the focus, not just the raw, technical realism of Renaissance work. It was sort of like the Renaissance artists discovered and provided the tools, and the Baroque artists figured out how best to use them to affect people. Where Renaissance work was literally and visually realistic (in most cases - NOT Michelangelo's Neoplatonic approach), and focused on subject matter, Baroque work was emotionally realistic, and focused on attempting to tickle the viewers emotions by placing the viewer into the scene both "physically" and emotionally. If you ask me, the concepts explored by Impressionism are similar as well, though the techniques may be different. Impressionism is also reactionary to photography. It attempts to capture the essence of a single moment figuratively; not literally like photography could now do.

Thank you 2F/2F. This is what is great about APUG, information awaiting to be mined.

Cheers
TEX

 

[Marco B]

Hi all,

Unfortunately, I have never been there, but I just thought I would post this as well as an example of successful perspective manipulation going to the extremes...

It is the "Sala dei Giganti" in the palace of the duke of Mantova, which is the main hall of the Palazzo del Te situated in Mantova in Northern Italy, and was adorned with a fresco covering all facing walls and the ceiling. It was painted by the artist Giulio (Pippi) Romano between 1532 and 1535, a former student of Rafael.

Surely, this must be one of the greatest works of art ever and at least one of the most successful and absolutely spectacular examples of perspective manipulation and usage...

You can't even make up where the walls are ending and the ceiling starts...

According to the artbook I have that references it, Giulio Romano even went as far as to make "fake" ruptures / cracks in the outer walls of the building, as the scene depicts the collapse of the building one is standing in, caused by an earth quack instigated by the wrath of the Jovian gods against the Giants who challenged them.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gigants.jpg
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/giulio/gigant.html
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palazzo_Te

Marco

 

[Videbaek]

I enjoy Hockney's book and theory about how great renaissance painters may have used optical projection as a drawing/painting aid... His idea hinges on the "before" and "after" of what we would call photographic realism. "Before", painters had not discovered the trick of optical projection. "After", they had, and used it to capture perspective, gesture and lightness/darkness with photographic realism. It's a question of seeing "correctly". Hockney argues that without optical aids, painters would not have learned to see "correctly", although they had highly developed theories and methods of perspectival representation. It's an interesting theory, very useful indeed because it comes from a practitioner who knows about drawing and painting. But no, I don't buy it. The point where painting moved to "photographically correct realism" came about when certain painters started to concentrate totally on seeing correctly into nature, rather than on interpreting what they saw from nature via accepted styles and methods. When draughtsmen and painters started to put the seeing first, and the style/technique second, then the evolution to photographically correct realism became inevitable. One or two painters started to make pictures based on their concentratedly correct seeing, Durer being one, the results inspired others, and the old styles became obsolete overnight. Using optical aids would not reduced their achievements at all. But they didn't. They didn't have to.

 

[ongarine]

I saw this thread late and there is a point about perpsective and history of art to talk about:

We know that Brunelleschi used an optical device incorporating a painting and a mirror in his discovery of the principles of linear perspective around 1415. We also have abundant graphic evidence in the work of Albrecht Dürer that he used an intersector to enable him to achieve the remarkable perspective fidelity that he's known for. He studied in Italy sometime right around the turn of the 16th C; it is likely that he had commerce with the Italian masters, possibly even Caravaggio.

Durer was the first time in Italy in the late summer of 1494 and he was atrracted above all by the works of Mantegna and Gentile and Giovanni Bellini painters Venetian, he lived some weeks in the town of Laguna and the he travelled west until Verona and the lake of Garda, then to north esploring some valleys until his home in Nuremberg, he arrived in the summer 1495. The second trip to Italy was between 1505 and 1507, this time he painted in Venice and he received an offer from the Senate of Serenissa to live in Venice, he refused and he was back to Nuremberg for the the mid of 1507. The second Italian stay was used by Durer to see Carpaccio and Mantegna works and it was in Padua and Mantua (where Mantegna was painter in the court of Gonzaga) and maybe in Pavia. He was influnced in the human figure because his formation was late-gotic and with the Italian trips he had a great improvemente in his skills in design humans. Michelangelo Merisi aka Caravaggio was born 29 Spetember 1571. About Caravaggio as "first photographer" it seems to me an insignificant newspaper news to fill space.