Hockney–Falco Thesis
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The Hockney–Falco thesis is a controversial theory of
art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...
, proposed by artist
David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...
in 1999 and further advanced with physicist Charles M. Falco since 2000 (together as well as individually). They argued that advances in naturalism and accuracy in the history of Western art since the early
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
(circa 1420/1430) were primarily the result of optical aids such as the
camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...
,
camera lucida A ''camera lucida'' is an optical device used as a drawing aid by artists and microscopy, microscopists. It projects an optics, optical superimposition of the subject being viewed onto the surface upon which the artist is drawing. The artist se ...
, and
curved mirror A curved mirror is a mirror with a curved reflecting surface. The surface may be either ''convex'' (bulging outward) or ''concave'' (recessed inward). Most curved mirrors have surfaces that are shaped like part of a sphere, but other shapes are ...
s, rather than solely due to the development of
artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...
ic technique and skill. In his 2001 book, ''Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters'', Hockney more extensively analyzed the work of the
Old Masters In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...
and argued that the level of accuracy represented in their work is impossible to create by "eyeballing it". It formed the basis for the 2002
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
documentary ''David Hockney: Secret Knowledge'', with some new ideas and experiments that in turn inspired additions to the second edition of the book (2006). Nineteenth-century artists' use of photography had been well documented, and many art historians had already suggested that certain artists had used the
camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...
for their work (most notably 18th century painter
Canaletto Giovanni Antonio Canal (18 October 1697 – 19 April 1768), commonly known as Canaletto (), was an Italian painter from the Republic of Venice, considered an important member of the 18th-century Venetian school. Painter of cityscapes or ...
and 17th century painter
Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , ; see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch ...
), but Hockney believed that nobody had previously suggested that optics had been used as early and widely as he suggested. Many art historians contested the hypothesis, while others found the debate "hyped" and pointed towards earlier studies and writings.


Earlier incarnations

The hypothesis that technology was used in the production of Renaissance Art was not much in dispute in early studies and literature. In his treatise on perspective, early Baroque painter
Cigoli Lodovico or Ludovico Cardi (21 September 1559 – 8 June 1613), also known as Cigoli, was an Italian painter and architect of the late Mannerist and early Baroque period, trained and active in his early career in Florence, and spending the last ...
(1559 – 1613) expressed his belief that a more likely explanation of the origin of painting lies in people conserving the image of the camera obscura by applying colours and tracing the contours of the projected figures, rather than
Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...
's traditional story about a Corinthian tracing the shadow of the profile of her departing lover. In 1755, Charles-Antoine Jombert noted that it was said that many of the Flemish painters (presumably the Flemish Primitives) had studied and imitated the effect of the camera obscura. Just like Hockney, he pointed out that the optical image differs from the way people see things naturally. The 1929 ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...
'' contained an extensive article on the
camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...
and cited
Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, Catholic priest, priest, linguistics, linguist, philosopher, and cryptography, cryptographer; he epitomised the natu ...
as the first documented user of the device as early as 1437. However, Alberti's "device" was probably a kind of
peep box A raree show, peep show or peep box is an exhibition of pictures or objects (or a combination of both), viewed through a small hole or magnifying glass. In 17th and 18th century Europe, it was a popular form of entertainment provided by wandering ...
, and the kind of optical devices that he and
Filippo Brunelleschi Filippo di ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi (1377 – 15 April 1446), commonly known as Filippo Brunelleschi ( ; ) and also nicknamed Pippo by Leon Battista Alberti, was an Italian architect, designer, goldsmith and sculptor. He is considered to ...
used, have been explained as means to demonstrate the rediscovered and enhanced application of Euclidean geometric perspective rather than drawing aids. Aaron Scharf's 1968 book ''Art and Photography'' details evidence of the use of photographs and the camera by painters. Scharf notes in his introduction that in 1568
Daniele Barbaro Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro (also Barbarus) (8 February 1514 – 13 April 1570) was an Italian cleric and diplomat. He was also an architect, writer on architecture, and translator of, and commentator on, Vitruvius. Barbaro's fame is chie ...
, the Venetian writer on architecture, recommended the camera obscura as an aid to artists: "By holding the paper steady you can trace the whole perspective outline with a pen, shade it, and delicately colour it from nature." David Lindberg's ''A Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Optical Manuscripts'' (Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1974) lists 61 manuscripts written in the years 1000–1425. These manuscripts not only describe methods for making mirrors and parabolic mirrors but also discuss their use for image projection. In 1990, Shigeru Tsuji argued that Brunelleschi had used the camera obscura to paint the panel for the famous experiment that has usually been heralded as the origin of linear perspective. In 1994, Roberta Lapucci proposed that Caravaggio's well-known use of mirrors evolved into the use of the camera obscura to reproduce the whole figure of a model, rather than the details and parts that the mirror-technique was used for.


Origins of the thesis and early publications

Aaron Scharf's ''Art and Photography'' is referred to by Hockney in his 1977 painting ''My Parents'' (Tate, London) in which his father is depicted attentively reading the volume. As described in ''Secret Knowledge'', in January 1999 during a visit to the
National Gallery, London The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current dire ...
, Hockney was struck by the accuracy of the small portrait drawings by
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( ; ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...
, and by their resemblance to drawings by
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...
that are known to have been traced from photographic images. He suspected that Ingres had used a
camera lucida A ''camera lucida'' is an optical device used as a drawing aid by artists and microscopy, microscopists. It projects an optics, optical superimposition of the subject being viewed onto the surface upon which the artist is drawing. The artist se ...
or similar device. In June 1999, Hockney published in the Royal Academy magazine, speculating about Ingres using the camera lucida and
Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...
possibly using an epidiascope or other mechanical means for his painting of ''The Prisoners in the Courtyard'', which very precisely reproduces
Gustave Doré Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré ( , , ; 6January 1832 – 23January 1883) was a French printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravings illustrati ...
's engraving (although Hockney considered this could also be done with a squared-up copy). Hockney suggested that the relation between 19th century painting and photography had yet to be explored, and that the influence of the supposed veracity of photography was currently ending due to computer manipulation affecting the way people use and experience images. Hockney began looking for signs of the use of optical aids in earlier paintings, creating what he called the ''Great Wall'' in his studio by organizing images of great naturalistic art by time period, which eventually seemed to display a sudden rise of naturalism around 1420. In March 2000, he showed the project to Charles Falco, a
condensed matter physicist Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and electrons. More gene ...
and an expert in
optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...
. Falco became especially intrigued with ''Husband and Wife'' by Lorenzo Lotto (circa 1543), of which Hockney had enlarged a section of the pattern on the rug that seems to go out of focus. Falco figured that the painting contained sufficient data to allow him to calculate an appoximation of the properties of the lens that would be used for projection, which he considered the "smoking gun" that would provide scientific evidence for the theory. Falco also noticed geometric pattern lines at the border of the rug that indicate different vanishing points, and he reasoned that Lotto refocused the lens for different sections of the carpet. (Hockney 2001, pp. 60, 254–257). In July 2000, Falco and Hockney published "Optical Insights into Renaissance Art" in ''Optics & Photonics News'', vol. 11, a detailed analysis of the likely use of concave mirrors in certain Renaissance paintings, particularly the Lotto painting. Experiments with a concave mirror (which technically is also a lens) of the calculated properties indeed produced a projected image that was bright and sharp enough to be of use to a painter. They also measured the distances between pupils in 12 examples of portraits with a "photographic quality" from between 1450 and 1565 and found that the pictures all had a magnification of ~90%, and the depicted heads and shoulders all stayed within a circumference of 30 to 50 cm, which corresponded with the sizes of sufficiently clear images projected with the mirror lens.


''Secret Knowledge''

In his book ''Secret Knowledge'' (2001), Hockney argues that early
Renaissance artists The Renaissance ( , ) is a period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and surpass the ideas ...
such as
Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( ; ; – 9 July 1441) was a Flemish people, Flemish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Nort ...
and
Lorenzo Lotto Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480 – 1556/57) was an Italian Renaissance painter, draughtsman, and illustrator, traditionally placed in the Venetian school, though much of his career was spent in other north Italian cities. He painted mainly altarpie ...
used concave mirrors; as evidence, he points to the chandelier in Van Eyck's ''
Arnolfini Portrait ''The Arnolfini Portrait'' (or ''The Arnolfini Wedding'', ''The Arnolfini Marriage'', the ''Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife'', or other titles) is an oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, dated 14 ...
'', the ear in Van Eyck's
portrait of Cardinal Albergati A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better re ...
, and the carpet in Lotto's ''Husband and Wife''. Hockney suggests that later artists, beginning with
Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...
, used
convex mirrors A curved mirror is a mirror with a curved reflecting surface. The surface may be either ''convex'' (bulging outward) or ''concave'' (recessed inward). Most curved mirrors have surfaces that are shaped like part of a sphere, but other shapes are ...
as well, to achieve a large field of view. ''Secret Knowledge'' recounts Hockney's search for evidence of optical aids in the work of earlier artists, including the assembly of a "Great Wall" of the history of Western art. The 15th century work of Jan van Eyck seems to be the turning point, he argues, after which elements of realism became increasingly prominent. He correlates shifts toward increased realism with advances in optical technologies.


The optical look

Many details that are very difficult to depict by eyeballing them, seem remarkably naturalistically painted after the 15th century turning point. Hockney noticed for instance how patterns on clothes perfectly follow complex folds, while clothing previously was painted in a simple graphic manner. Foreshortened curved objects like lutes and pages of a book started to look very accurate in renaissance paintings. While such subjects would be extremely difficult to paint even with technical aids like the frame and chord method known from a 1525 woodcut by Dürer, it is much easier with optical projections (Hockney 2001 p. 36–57). Hockney tested a technique with a small concave mirror projecting the view from a small open window onto a surface in a darkened room. He associated several of the limitations of the technique and the characteristics of the projected images with the look of many naturalistic paintings: strong lights and shadows, dark backgrounds, limited depth, and a head-on perspective. The use of strong light is also indicated by the small pupils in Van Eyck's portrait of cardinal Albergati, and Hockney suggested that the shelf and ledges at the bottom of many portraits and still lifes, as well as similarities in composition and lighting could be related to this "hole-in-the-wall" technique. According to Hockney, even the establishment of
still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...
as a genre in the 15th and 16th centuries might be connected to the ease of using inanimate objects for the projected imagery. He stressed that not all the artists used the mirror-lens; many could have imitated the look from the works of those who did (p. 74–81, 104–112). When lenses became large and good enough for wider projections with camera obscuras, artists would have recognised the advantage and Hockney believes this explains the very influential style of
Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...
's paintings (p. 112).


Distortions

Hockney argued that the accurate
anamorphic Anamorphic format is a cinematography technique that captures widescreen images using recording media with narrower native Aspect ratio (image), aspect ratios. Originally developed for 35 mm movie film, 35 mm film to create widescreen pres ...
skull in Holbein's ''The Ambassadors'' (1533) could have been made with the help of a projection on a tilted surface (p. 57). He recognised less obvious distortions that could similarly (but incidentally) have been caused by a slight tilt of the canvas in the apparently "squeezed up" skull in
Francisco de Zurbarán Francisco de Zurbarán ( , ; baptized 7 November 1598 – 27 August 1664) was a Spanish painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. Zurbarán gained the nickname "Spanis ...
's ''St. Franciscus at Prayer'' (circa 1638–39), and in the figure of Jan van Bylert's ''Man in Armour Holding a Pike'' (circa 1630) (p. 179).


Montage technique

Hockney suggested that master painters who used projections would often piece together their compositions from different elements. Most elements would be drawn or painted from a straight on viewpoint, although this doesn't always match their place in the linear perspective of the overall composition. The consecutive projections of the different parts sometimes seem to have caused distorted proportions that are not immediately obvious, but would not as soon occur if the master would have sketched out the composition by eye (pp. 112,172–177)


Further publications by Hockney and Falco

After their initial papers and Hockney's book, Hockney and Falco have continued publishing about their theory. At a scientific conference in February 2007, Falco argued that the Arabic physicist
Ibn al-Haytham Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (Latinization of names, Latinized as Alhazen; ; full name ; ) was a medieval Mathematics in medieval Islam, mathematician, Astronomy in the medieval Islamic world, astronomer, and Physics in the medieval Islamic world, p ...
's (965–1040) work on
optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...
, in his ''
Book of Optics The ''Book of Optics'' (; or ''Perspectiva''; ) is a seven-volume treatise on optics and other fields of study composed by the medieval Arab scholar Ibn al-Haytham, known in the West as Alhazen or Alhacen (965–c. 1040 AD). The ''Book ...
'', may have influenced the use of optical aids by Renaissance artists. Falco said that his and Hockney's examples of Renaissance art "demonstrate a continuum in the use of optics by artists from c. 1430, arguably initiated as a result of Ibn al-Haytham's influence, until today."


Reception

The thesis prompted intense and sustained debate among artists, art historians, and a wide variety of other scholars. In particular, it has spurred increased interest in the actual methods and techniques of artists among scientists and
historians of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Protoscience, early sciences, and natural philosophies such as al ...
, as well as general historians and
art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...
s. The latter have in general reacted unfavorably, interpreting the Hockney–Falco thesis as an accusation that the Old Masters "cheated" and intentionally obscured their methods. Art historians and others have criticized Hockney's argument on the grounds that the use of optical aids, though well-established in individual cases, has little value for explaining the overall development of Western art, and that historical records and paintings and photographs of art studios (without optical devices), as well as present-day realist artists, demonstrate that high levels of realism are possible without optical aids. Criminisi and Stork enlisted a contemporary artist to create a chandelier painting similar to the detail found in ''Arnolfini Portrait'' by eye as part of their response to the thesis, which they found to have a similar level of accuracy. Hockney ignored the history of linear perspective and the developments towards realism in sculpture that seem independent of any intervention by discoveries concerning optics.


Optical distortion

In addition to incredulity on the part of art historians and critics of modern art, some of the harshest criticism of the Hockney–Falco thesis came from another expert in optics, image processing and pattern recognition, David G. Stork. Stork analyzed the images used by Falco and Hockney, and came to the conclusion that they do not demonstrate the kinds of optical distortion that curved mirrors or converging lenses would cause. Falco has responded that Stork's published criticisms have relied on fabricated data and misrepresentations of Hockney and Falco's theory. Stork has rebutted this.


Renaissance optics

Critics of the Hockney–Falco theory say the quality of mirrors and optical glass for the period before 1550 and a lack of textual evidence (excluding paintings themselves as "documentary evidence") of their use for image projection during this period cast doubt on the theory. Historians are more inclined to agree about the possible relevance of the thesis between 1550 and the invention of the telescope, and cautiously supportive after that period, when there clearly was interest and capacity to project realistic images; 17th century painters such as
Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , ; see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch ...
and
Gaspar van Wittel Caspar van Wittel or Gaspar van Wittel (; born Jasper Adriaensz van Wittel; 1652 or 1653 – 13 September 1736), known in Italian as Gaspare Vanvitelli () or (), was a Dutch painter and draughtsman who had a long career in Rome. He played a ...
used optical devices in a variety of ways, though not the ways postulated by Hockney. Leaving the technical optical arguments aside, historians of science investigated several aspects of the historical plausibility of the thesis in a 2005 set of articles in ''Early Science and Medicine''. In his introduction to the volume, Sven Dupré claimed the Hockney–Falco analysis rests heavily on a small number of examples, "a few dozen square centimeters" of canvas that seem to show signs that optical devices were used.


Image projection

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
's notebooks include several designs for creating concave mirrors. Leonardo also describes a
camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...
in his ''
Codex Atlanticus The Codex Atlanticus (Atlantic Codex) is a 12-volume, bound set of drawings and writings (in Italian) by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest single set. Its name indicates the large paper used to preserve original Leonardo notebook pages, which was u ...
'' of 1478–1519. The camera obscura was well known for centuries and documented by Ibn al-Haitham in his ''
Book of Optics The ''Book of Optics'' (; or ''Perspectiva''; ) is a seven-volume treatise on optics and other fields of study composed by the medieval Arab scholar Ibn al-Haytham, known in the West as Alhazen or Alhacen (965–c. 1040 AD). The ''Book ...
'' of 1011–1021. In 13th-century England
Roger Bacon Roger Bacon (; or ', also '' Rogerus''; ), also known by the Scholastic accolades, scholastic accolade ''Doctor Mirabilis'', was a medieval English polymath, philosopher, scientist, theologian and Franciscans, Franciscan friar who placed co ...
described the use of a camera obscura for the safe observation of
solar eclipses A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season i ...
, exactly because the viewer looks at the projected image and not the sun itself.


Optical glass

Sara J. Schechner argued that surviving glassware from the 15th and 16th centuries is far too imperfect to have been used to create realistic images, while "even thinking about projecting images was alien to the contemporary conceptual frame of mind." Vincent Ilardi, a historian of Renaissance optical glass, subsequently argued against Schechner's conclusions based on surviving glassware, suggesting that the present condition of Renaissance glassware is not likely to reflect the optical quality of such glassware when it was new. Ilardi documents
Lorenzo Lotto Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480 – 1556/57) was an Italian Renaissance painter, draughtsman, and illustrator, traditionally placed in the Venetian school, though much of his career was spent in other north Italian cities. He painted mainly altarpie ...
's purchase of a high-priced crystal mirror in 1549, bolstering the Hockney–Falco thesis in Lotto's case. Furthermore, even normal eyeglasses (spectacles) can also project images of sufficient optical quality to support the Hockney–Falco thesis and such eyeglasses, along with magnifying glasses and mirrors, were not only available at the time, but actually pictured in 14th century paintings by artists such as Tommaso da Modena. Dutch draper and pioneering microbiologist
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek ( ; ; 24 October 1632 – 26 August 1723) was a Dutch microbiologist and microscopist in the Golden Age of Dutch art, science and technology. A largely self-taught man in science, he is commonly known as " ...
(1632–1723), a contemporary of artist Vermeer (and an executor for Vermeer when he died in 1675) in Delft was known to have exceptional lens making skills, having created single small lenses capable of 200× magnification, far exceeding those of more complex compound microscopes of the period. Indeed, his feats of lens making were not matched for a considerable time as he kept aspects of their construction secret; in the 1950s, C. L. Stong used thin glass thread fusing instead of polishing to recreate Leeuwenhoek design microscopes. It was long believed that Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was a master lens grinder (a notion repeated in a BBC television documentary ''Cell''). However, it is now believed that he came upon a relatively simple method of making small, high quality glass spheres by heating and manipulating a small rod of soda lime glass.


Metal mirrors

On his website, Falco also claims Schechner overlooked manuscript evidence for the use of mirrors made from steel and other metals, as well as numerous metal artifacts that belie the claim that sufficiently large and reflective metal mirrors were unavailable, and that other contributors to the ''Early Science and Medicine'' volume relied on Schechner's mistaken work in dismissing the thesis.


Evidence of earlier use of optical tools

Don Ihde Don Ihde (; January 14, 1934 – January 17, 2024) was an American philosopher of science and technology.Katinka Waelbers, ''Doing Good with Technologies: Taking Responsibility for the Social Role of Emerging Technologies'', Springer, 2011, p. 7 ...
called the hypothesis being 'hyped' and referred to clear evidence about the use of optical tools by, e.g.,
Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...
and Leonardo da Vinci and others. As well the 1929 ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...
'' contains an extensive article on the
camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...
and cites
Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, Catholic priest, priest, linguistics, linguist, philosopher, and cryptography, cryptographer; he epitomised the natu ...
as the first documented user of the device as early as 1437. Ihde states abundant evidence for widespread use of various technical devices at least in the Renaissance and e.g. in
Early Netherlandish painting Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian Netherlands, Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flour ...
.
Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( ; ; – 9 July 1441) was a Flemish people, Flemish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Nort ...
's 1434 painting ''
Arnolfini Portrait ''The Arnolfini Portrait'' (or ''The Arnolfini Wedding'', ''The Arnolfini Marriage'', the ''Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife'', or other titles) is an oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, dated 14 ...
'' shows a convex mirror in the centre of the painting. Van Eyck also left his signature above this mirror, the book mentions various (previous) studies stating a broad use of technology in the Renaissance and does not refer to the hypothesis and the hype around it at all showing the importance of the tool. The painting includes a crown glass window in the upper left side, a rather expensive luxury at the time. Van Eyck was rather fascinated by glass and its qualities, which was as well of high symbolic importance for his contemporaries. Early optical instruments were comparatively expensive in the Medieval age and the Renaissance.


Legacy

Although experts mostly recognised little new or convincing evidence in the Hockney–Falco thesis, the publicity surrounding it increased the attention to the relation between optics and art, and several more rigorous, scholarly studies on the subject have since been published. For instance, there was the case of the decade-long research on
Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...
's works conducted by painter Francis O'Neill. In the published paper he wrote with Sofia Palazzo Corner entitled, ''Rembrandt's Self-portraits'', O'Neill presented recurring themes in the painter's works that serve as evidence in his use of mirrors, particularly, in his self-portraits. These include the use of
chiaroscuro In art, chiaroscuro ( , ; ) is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to ach ...
, which is a signature of the lighting conditions necessary for projections as well as Rembrandt's off-center gaze in his self-portraits, which - according to O'Neill - indicated that the artist might have been looking at a projection surface off to the side rather than straight onto a flat mirror. The large 2020 Van Eyck exhibition in Ghent was subtitled "An Optical Revolution", but the accompanying information and published book clarified how experts attribute his remarkable naturalism to scientific knowledge of optics (presumably through works like those of
Euclid Euclid (; ; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the '' Elements'' treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely domina ...
,
Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...
and especially Ibn al-Haytham) rather than the use of optical aids.


See also

* ''
Tim's Vermeer ''Tim's Vermeer'' is a 2013 documentary film, directed by Teller, produced by his stage partner Penn Jillette and Farley Ziegler, about inventor Tim Jenison's efforts to duplicate the painting techniques of Johannes Vermeer, in order to test his h ...
'', a 2013 documentary film showing Tim Jenison's hypothesis: Vermeer might have created his paintings aided by an optical device, as Jenison demonstrates by recreating a Vermeer painting.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hockney-Falco thesis Art history History of technology 21st-century controversies David Hockney