Thoughts From the Easel - Part 3

The word ‘Photography’ is derived from the Greek ‘Photos’ (of light) and ‘Graphein’ (to draw) so literally ‘drawing with light’. Photographers paint with light – artists paint with colour. So how did they become so closely linked? It is thought that it was probably by chance. All that was needed was a darkened room on a hot, sunny day in Florence, with the heavy curtains slightly ajar, a sun lit piazza, a concave mirror on the studio wall and suddenly, there was the image from the square outside, reflected onto the studio wall, in colour and it was a moving image. Imagine the artist’s surprise and delight; this image could be traced onto a canvas accurately. True ‘camera obscura’ (darkened room).

This is probably how the transition occurred from mediaeval art to early renaissance, but the artists were all very secretive. Look at the difference between these two images – a mediaeval 11th century fresco (1) and a Leonardo da Vinci c1508 (2). As early as 1420, there are records of camera obscura and Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) observed its use in his notebooks. David Hockney, considered to be one of the most influential British artists, has written a wonderful book, ‘Secret Knowledge’, which is well worth reading, in which he looks at the use of optical devices to create images.

Some of the artists who used optical projections were Jan Van Eyck, a Flemish painter active in Bruges ‘The Arnolfini Portrait’ 1434 (3) and (4) a section from the same piece - look at the detail of the chandelier and the reflection in the mirror, Caravaggio’s ‘The Young Bacchus’ 1597 (5), one of my favourite’s, Johannes Vermeer (1632 – 1675) ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ (6) and Canaletto (1697 – 1768). They all used camera obscura with a lens; without these tools, Vermeer would not have been able to paint the spherical earring so perfectly, as has been recently proved by x-rays and the chandelier in Van Eyck’s painting would also have been virtually impossible to paint so accurately without the use of camera obscura. Camera Lucida was a later development in the early 1800’s.

All of these tools helped the artist to create a two dimensional image from the three dimensional subject with the use of an optical lens. As this was only a single view point, it would have been necessary to divide the subject matter into a number of areas, in order to record the picture accurately. The problem was that, by so doing, you can often see areas of the painting, which are out of focus. This is a further clue that many of the old masters’ paintings were created with the use of optical projection. This is why, when we look at them, we can recognise the photographic look of these paintings.

The other book worth reading, if this is of interest to you, is ‘Vermeer’s Camera - Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces’ by Philip Steadman, where he proves, to my satisfaction, that this is how it all happened.