David Hockney about the optical aids of Renaissance painters

David HOCKNEY has argued that many medieval and Renaissance painters used optical aids, such as mirrors and lenses, to achieve their highly detailed and realistic works. This idea is central to what is often called the Hockney-Falco thesis, which he developed in collaboration with physicist Charles FALCO.

Hockney believes that from around 1420 onward, artists began using tools like concave mirrors and lenses to project scenes or subjects onto surfaces, enabling them to trace these projections and achieve greater accuracy in perspective and detail. He points to certain visual phenomena in paintings, such as unusual focal distortions and highly precise renderings of textures, as evidence for this claim.

This theory has sparked significant debate among art historians and scientists. Critics argue that the skill of these artists and advancements in traditional methods of perspective could account for the realism in their works without optical tools. Supporters, however, find the idea compelling, particularly for explaining sudden leaps in precision seen during the Renaissance.

Hockney's research on this subject was published in his book 'Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters' (2001), where he analyzes historical paintings to support his viewpoint.

David Hockney investigating techniques of Renaissance painters in the BBC movie available on YouTube

I Can See bibliography

The “Vanishing Race” Printed in Platinum

I was brought up with 'cowboys-and-indians' stories in children books and films, like 'Winnetou' and 'Old Shatterhand'. I had cut out photographs from magazines in my room and was a big fan of Edward Curtis, who -as I so believed- photographed the real indians. His photographs are still magnificient and the way he photographed proves his real craftmanship. However 'real' is always different from what you think, is it not?
The following text is copied from: https://americanindian.si.edu/indelible/printed-in-platinum.html

Euro-Americans had expected American Indians to become extinct as the United States expanded westward. By the 1850s, photographs documenting the so-called vanishing race were highly valued. These photographs emphasized surface details—the contours of a face, the intricacies of dress, the arrangement of hair. With its hard, clear lines, the silver print was ideal for communicating this precise visual data.

At the end of the nineteenth century, however, art photographers traded photographic precision for artistic interpretation. Chief among them was Edward S. Curtis. In the introduction to his monumental twenty-volume The North American Indian (1907–30), he rejected what he called photography’s “microscopic detail” in exchange for a more “luminous picture” of Indian life.

The platinum prints made by Curtis and others conceptualized the idea of the vanishing race in visually unprecedented and troublingly romantic terms. Disarmingly beautiful and still widely admired, these photographs continue to mask a catastrophic moment in American Indian history. Using their platinum print photographs, Larry McNeil and Will Wilson challenge this history and its legacy.

read the full story here: americanindian.si.edu/indelible/printed-in-platinum.html

and don't forget this page: americanindian.si.edu/indelible/zig-jackson.html

Hé, Art Student, would you like to get a 'kick-start'?

There is so much to learn about hów you see, whát you see and how to interpret that. Here is a (free) website tjokfull of ideas and easy to follow lessons to enhance your visual skills. www.i-can-see.academy

Project: Glasgow Architects

In the early days of digital photography (1999), while working in Glasgow, I was asked by Page & Park Architects to make a proposal for the outside of the Glasgow Herald building.
The idea was to make projections on the other side of the street (then a quite uninteresting carpark), large posters (for instance from exhibitions and cultural events) and coloured light ( as for instance the (then) PTT building in the Hague (NL) )

I remember it took me a night, the idea was never realised, but it was sure nice to work on!

Curating photography

Interview with Peter GALASSI, Former Chief Curator of Photography, MoMA, New York

By Daniel Palmer – Published: 25/08/2016

"The biggest thing that happened, and what defined the biggest challenge of my twenty years as Chief Curator, was that photography’s indigenous traditions, photographic traditions, were joined by a new tradition of photography within the contemporary art world. It really began to take shape in the 1960s, and by the late 1970s was a real force to be contended with."
"The other big challenge was that we’re now towards the end of the golden age of collecting"
"Well I think of Steichen as an aberration in an otherwise normal history of a museum. You know Steichen was a great artist, he was a great artist at least twice over, but by the time he came to MoMA he was a person who always wanted to be at the centre of things. And his perception, beginning sometime in the 1930s, was that the centre of things was the magazine business – photography as mass communication. He set out to be a big player in that world and at MoMA that’s what he was, he was like Life magazine inside the walls of the museum. "
"I think Szarkowski is still, by a long shot, the best curator and historian photography has had, so far. But that doesn’t mean he was always right. He was unresponsive to a certain swath of activity, that’s for sure. Of course, curators have a responsibility that artists don’t have, nevertheless, you judge artists on their best work, not on their average work. So if you judge Szarkowski on his best work, no other curator’s done that well. And after all, now that the dust is settling on this, if you had to pick the three most important photographers, the three most important artists who made photographs in the 1960s – Winogrand, Friedlander, Arbus…"
I am so tired of hearing about how digital technology has destroyed photography’s connection to the real world, that I’m thinking about organizing a show about all the ways that digital technology has enhanced photographers’ abilities to be involved in the real world.
Interview conducted in October 2013  photocurating.net/peter-galassi/

'Color and consciousness'

After an article by Maria Popova:
Psychedelic Dinosaurs, Four-Dimensional Hummingbirds, and how we got to our vision: Color, Consciousness, and the Dazzling Universe of Tetrachromacy

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
books.google.nl

A triangle

A portrait is so much more than a flattering, well-lit and sharp rightfull representation. One could convey an idea or feeling beyond that, which is not always rightly understood.
Try to see it as a triangle, with 3 persons or parties at the corners:
1. is the hard working photographer, the artist if you like with definite ideas and motivation.
2. is the one who is in the picture, the sitter, what is the sitter's expression or how do people react when their picture is taken? Are they aware of the camera / photographer? Do they connect with the photographer's idea?
3. Than there is the spectator, looking at the final portrait, to consider, who has his own opinion of the contents.

Robert Schilder, photo from the book 'Banaras, City of God, Heart of India
Another example of this 'triangle' is this:
1. what you say must have meaning
2. there must be someone who listens
3. that person must do something with what you are saying