/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

[Anonymous No.1833194]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=450pvHhH3Zg

>1425 A.D+589
>not continuing the western tradition of using optics in painting
>not using a camera obscura, camera lucida, or concave mirrors to enhance your rendering

I seriously hope you guys dont do this

[Anonymous No.1833204]

>mfw

[Anonymous No.1833205]

>>1833204
I always wondered how these are made. I can watch it repeat a hundred times and still be fascinated.

[Anonymous No.1833219]

>>1833194
did you bother to look up a rebuttal or do you just believe the first sensational thing that floats by?

[Anonymous No.1833263]

>>1833219
I have been looking up rebuttals. The main ones are people can paint this well without optical aid. However, I know quite a bit about photography and can tell these have a certain look to them, most notably Caravaggio. Also you have stuff like chromatic aberrations and dept-of-field in Vermeer (stuff that doesnt happen with our eyes, only with optical instruments).

Of course I dont think it devalues the Renaissance artists any less for having (allegedly) used them.

>pic related is from a photographer who uses a giant camera obscura and almost life-size film. You can tell it have similar qualities (distortions and dept-of-field) that make it look strikingly similar to a Renaissance painting

[Anonymous No.1833275]

>>1833263
Depth of field isn't limited to photography. Our eyes also focus on a specific point/distance, and have other things softer and out of focus.

[Anonymous No.1833282]

>>1833275
Ok, but our eyes dont stay on one fixed spot while we are painting something, they dart around to all the parts, therefore bringing them all in focus and them combining them in our mind. so how would a part in the painting be blurry..?

[Anonymous No.1833302]

>>1833282
Uh, you paint it blurry? Like is it really so hard to imagine that people are aware that things that you aren't looking at are blurry and so paint it that way? Or that when you paint something blurry there is less focus in your painting on it? It's called edge control, you make the focal areas have harder edges, and areas in shadows or that are less important have softer blurrier edges. Rembrandt is a good early example of someone really excelling at it and exaggerating the effect with great success. It's the same thing with values--when you stare into shadows for a while your pupils compensate for the less light and you end up seeing more detail and values in that dark area than you would ordinarily see if you looked at the whole scene at once. Artists are aware of this, and using that knowledge they can compensate and not put all that detail and value in the shadow areas.

Anyways, pic related is the type of thing you can paint when you are aware of edges and how the eye treats things in a scene. You don't need a photo to do this.

[Anonymous No.1833306]

>>1833302
but thats obviously a stylized choice. I'm talking about stuff that the artist wouldnt notice in a scene that would carry over from a projection, and therefore wouldn't do consciously. watch the videos, they go into detail about the dept of field of a tablecloth that couldnt have been done on purpose

[Anonymous No.1833308]

>>1833306
Eh, don't feel like watching it really. I skipped forward in the video and saw they were talking of Hockney, and I really hate the guy. I watched that new documentary on Vermeer and the guy who recreated it and stuff, and a lot of their arguments were flimsy and Hockney really rubbed me the wrong way.

Plus I don't really care that much about this.

[Anonymous No.1833310]

>>1833308
I dont like Hockney either. The guy talking is an optics professor though. I watched the vermeer one too, I really hate penn and teller but I think it was interesting if nothing else

[Anonymous No.1833330]

>>1833306
you can also paint that stuff. they're called field effects, optical painters paint them too.

there's lots of reasons the theory is dumb too. like the projection would be upside down, so you'd have to paint it upside down and flip the canvas over. but the paintings don't have inverted strokes. the artists painting things that weren't real, angels wings and such just as well as they painted people. there's still no evidence for concave mirrors with a long enough focal length. most renaissance paintings appear to be painted under candle light, which is nowhere near bright enough.

it's almost like..even if they had the mirrors and they knew how to use them and everything..why would they? they can paint super well already, they had grids and plumbs and perspective, they have the freedom to paint under any light condition they wanted. why limit yourself.

later when there were good quality lenses sure. but before like the 17th century (ish) i don't think they were much use to an artist.

[Anonymous No.1833358]

>>1833330
You do know you don't have to paint all the way through using lenses?

They could have made some preliminary sketches or did the first few sittings using the lenses. It's not difficult to setup. The lenses were probably used frequently for complex pieces that were under a time constraints, like portraits of influential people. And sometimes the paintings were worked on by several apprentices, so it would make since to use lenses to capture a layout for everyone to follow or least something as reference for the scen had to setup for the next sitting.

Plus they glazed and smoothed every stroked so no inverted strokes would be seen any way. And painting under candle light or at least extremely minimal lighting, was preferred because it made for better color matching.

Oh and optical lenses were manufactured in good quality well before the 17th century. The history of the telescope is testament to that.

[Anonymous No.1833376]

>>1833330
you can just flip the image the right ways up with another mirror. alternatively, you can just change your seating

[Anonymous No.1833387]

>>1833358
but again why. it is hard to set up. you need a certain light, you need a little dark tent to sit in. you need to paint in the dark. i think it seems faster because we have photography and such nowadays and it seems like it would be quicker, but i think if you consider the requirements more carefully it's not so cut and dry.

a candle doesn't work for projection it needs to be much much brighter. like sunlight. they would have to have the subject sit in the sun. then they would have to simulate the candle light. much easier right?

you can see plenty of strokes in italian renaissance art.

i don't think so, the wikipedia page says the earliest telescope was in 1608 which is ~ the turn of the 17th century like i said. i'm no expert but i think objective lenses were 'officially' invented in the 1570s.

[Anonymous No.1833393]

>>1833376
it's not an image it's a projection.

[Anonymous No.1833442]

>>1833387
>it is hard to set up
It's a box with a hole in it, like a pinhole camera. (Matter of fact you don't even need a lens sometimes.) It's not hard to construct. And compared to complex perspective machines that were frequent, I doubt these people were all about ease at the sacrifice of quality. It was common to then to construct cumbersome machines to replicate nature's appearance accurately. Martin Kemp wrote a book about it called The Science of Art.

>candle doesn't work for projection it needs to be much much brighter. like sunlight.
Again it's basically a pinhole camera, you don't need a bright light. And candles can be very bright in a dark room. Sunlight blows things out and changes color too much. They knew that back then too.

>you can see plenty of strokes in italian renaissance art.
Provide examples, how were you able to distinguish them through the cracking and flaking from the centuries. Most times it's just the finish or there was heavy glazing. Visible strokes were frowned upon in Renaissance. They were seen as amateurish.

>First Telescope 1608.
I'll give you that one, but will offer Durer's painting device (see pic), that used a large pane of glass, as counter to your claim that glass production was too poor. Also would like to note the oldest lens is the nimrod lens, and convex lenses were used since the Egyptians and Romans. Spectacles were being manufactured as early as the 13th century, primarily in Italy. And let us not forget about stained glass windows in churches, that takes glass making to a sophisticated level of production. Glass making and the optics industry was progressing long long long before the 17th century.

The Renaissance was about experimentation, I don't think it's unreasonable to think artists then experimented with the latest gadgetry and were hip to studying optics.

TL;DR: Shut up

[Anonymous No.1833451]

>>1833442
well my point is that it isn't a necessary thing. every time anyone is challenged on it it goes like this:

>the renaissance painters weren't actually good painters they just used lenses and kept it secret! i KNEW being good at art was a scam!

list of objections

>well...okay they couldn't do that exactly. but maybe they like um, did the sketches using a concave mirror and ..sure they had to be very skilled in realism anyway and sure it wouldn't of been much easier and sure the conditions would of been restrictive and sure there's no actual proof at all just a few paintings which neither artists or optical scientists can agree on...but i knew being good at art was a scam. :/

it's just another nasty conspiracy theory.

and go have a look at some actual paintings if you think there's no visible strokes in italian renaissance stuff, it's not nearly as licky as you think.

[Anonymous No.1833455]

>>1833451
1. Good was marked by how scientific the artist was at replicating nature's appearance. This includes using machines to do that. There is plenty left over to support that.

2. Most artist then were makers. They worked in large workshops making machines to help manufacture their goods, like paintings. They were competitive and used technology to gain the advantage. Again there is plenty left over to support this.

3. Art was more a guild like industry then. They operated as manufacturing works of Art. And in an era of experimentation they did plenty of tricks to keep production up with demand. Again plenty of left over to support that.

Not much has survived from the 15th century telling about the behind the scenes. But in era of rapid discovery, invention, and complexity, it would be a scam to suggest that it was all from talent, or just being naturally 'gud'. Its not difficult to speculate that ingenuity was involved, that artist were intuned with technology and weren't afraid to use whatever latest thing to stay ahead.

A conspiracy would be to suggest that the Renaissance was from luck, that one day after doodling for centuries they suddenly had the 'skillz' to go all realistic like. No. There was more at play then just sitting around doing studies all day.

TD;DR: shut up, go back to you gmargat

[Anonymous No.1833560]

>people back then weren't very smart they couldn't even write in English

this guy is an absolute fool

[Anonymous No.1833563]

>>1833455
Lots of old masters didn't use optical devices and still kicked ass. Renaissance art is not monolithic.

[Anonymous No.1833583]

>>1833563
Lots of masters were a group of people in an assembly. They used what ever trick they did. They weren't mythical savants. They were practical and weren't afraid to embrace technology.

[Anonymous No.1833620]

So how did they make realistic sculptures and self portraits?

[Anonymous No.1833626]

>>1833455
>naturally 'gud'
>they suddenly had the 'skillz'
jesus

[Anonymous No.1833629]

so they never talked about it because it was a super secret technique that... everyone else used ?

[Anonymous No.1833638]

>>1833583
Again, old masters are not a monolithic group. Absolute realism was not the only goal, not all had workshops, and the sizes of the workshops varied. Rembrandt and Vermeer used different tools and produced much different art. El Greco sure wasn't looking for a camera obscura.

[Anonymous No.1833678]

has anyone on /ic/ tried using one? I'd be curious to know how it went...

[Anonymous No.1833681]

>>1833560
scientists arent allowed to joke, anon?

[Anonymous No.1833730]

>>1833638
Rembrandt used a shit load of people, there is an entire society today dedicated to figuring out what paintings he actually touched. His style changes were from the changes with the people under him.

Ibn al-Haytham invented the camera obscura the 11th century, his book on optics was popular in Renaissance Italy with many artist.

Filippo Brunelleschi used a mirror with a hole in it. Wrote about it in his treatise of perspective.

Leon Battista Alberti used a grid with a peephole.

Durer diagramed several perspective machines used commonly for drawing.

Da Vinci talks about tracing on glass in his treatise on painting. He even drew a picture about that, see pic.

Should I go on?

In a time when literacy correlated with class status, and the printing press merely a few generations old, I don't thinks it's difficult to reason that artist then shared a common education, bound together through books. The theories weren't secret. The artist weren't preternatural gifted.,They were inventive, practical, and experimental; that's the stone they were carved from.

[Anonymous No.1833782]

>>1833730
I'm not debating any of that you daft fuck. Just stop pretending those examples are representative of every old master, "old master" is a broad as fuck term that you're pigeon-holing. Not every old master relied on advanced optical devices like the camera obscura or camera lucida.

[Anonymous No.1833792]

>>1833782
Stop being a crybaby you stupid fucking cunt. Every 'Old Master' touched upon the subject of using devices to aid in production. Get off your high horse. They didn't just eyeballed it all, they had help.

[Anonymous No.1833793]

>>1833792
that's why they're all overrated shitters and must be rejected

[Anonymous No.1833820]

>>1833782
Every single old master that did architecture used a perspective machine of some kind. Every single old master that painted a frescos used a grid apparatus of somekind. All were essential optical devices. Every single old master talked about it. Stop pretending the old master were oblivious of each other and what they were doing. Stop pigeon holing the term old master as if were a vague esoteric term. Back then the title of Master was regulated. Back then some made a reputation for themselves. And today they're called the 'Old Masters'. The term is not as broad you think it to be.

Every single one.

[Anonymous No.1833916]

>>1833792
Your argument becomes more and more nebulous. It went from using shit like the camera obscura to "touching upon the subject of using devices to aid in production." Just admit that not every Old Master used optical devices, especially advanced devices that use lenses, and that you're generalizing quite a bit. Then get over it.

>>1833820
>every fresco used a grid
Citation needed
>every example of architecture used a perspective machine
Citation needed

Laying out a grid and tracing a projection are a world apart kiddo. OP mentioned mirrors and lenses, not any useful tool an artist could possibly use.

List the (advanced) optical devices used by El Greco, William Blake, Goya, Duccio, Botticelli, or Bosch.

[Anonymous No.1833927]

ITT: cunts looking for justification for cheating and sucking donkey balls

[Anonymous No.1833950]

>>1833916
Why are you so desperate to protect your magical art wizards from reality? With each post you've shown that it's disturbing for you to find out that the Old masters were practical and not some myth about eyeballing. You only thinks it was cheating because it spoiled your fantasy.

ITT: Narcissistic babies attempt to make their magical art wizards real.

[Anonymous No.1834036]

>>1833950
>disturbing for you to find out
please, drop the condescension, you haven't said anything I didn't already know. Interesting how you avoided discussing how any of the old masters I listed in my last post used optical devices. In none of my posts have I implied that use of optical devices is "cheating", but continue attacking strawmen if you want.

[Anonymous No.1834046]

>>1834036
Please stop crying, you stupid cunt. You haven't said anything substantial, your fantasies are nothing more than cliché interpretations, clinging to the mythical belief they were magical art wizards. Stop while your ahead you stupid bitch.

[Anonymous No.1834132]

>>1834046
Another post ignoring examples that prove you wrong. Maybe you need to actually see that every old master did not use optical machinery.

What sort of device did El Greco use here?

[Anonymous No.1834133]

>>1834132
or Duccio, in this painting?

[Anonymous No.1834134]

>>1834133
Since, as you say, EVERY old master used optical devices like the camera obscura, it's obvious that Giotto used scientific wonders to achieve this mural, right?

[Anonymous No.1834135]

>>1834133
>>1834132
OP here (not the guy you've been arguing with), but of course they didnt for these. What I mean is stuff like caravaggion/durer/van eyck who try to get as close to reality in rendering as possible. of course not every master used them

[Anonymous No.1834136]

>>1833820
>every
>single
>one

[Anonymous No.1834137]

>>1834132
THIS> http://youtu.be/ynrnfBnhWSo

Sorry to shatter your world to pieces...

[Anonymous No.1834138]

>>1834135
the entire argument is over the ridiculous statements like "EVERY old master" and "old masters all did [x]". It's obvious that many old masters used optical devices of some kind. Others created incredibly detailed and realistic work without much help. Still others didn't make this sort of work at all. My entire position has been that "old masters" are not a monolithic group.

[Anonymous No.1834139]

>>1834137
And what does Vermeer's method have to do with Duccio or any of the other old masters I've posted? I've never denied the use of optical devices in art history you dunce.

[Anonymous No.1834141]

>>1834137
>my world is shattered
>by shit everyone here has known for years
omg how u know these secrets?!

[Anonymous No.1834144]

>>1834141
So you're admiting this >>1833820 is true. Ok then, I see you finally understood. See it wasn't that hard.

[Anonymous No.1834145]

Vermeer was a fucking tracefag hack who couldn't draw for shit

[Anonymous No.1834149]

>>1834144
Vermeer's use of a camera obscura != evidence that EVERY SINGLE old master used optical devices

at this point you're just trolling, numerous examples have already been posted that disprove that post.

[Anonymous No.1834152]

>>1834046
I'm not the anon arguing with you, but the problem with your argument is that the usage of these tools don't lower the value of the old masters' as much as you say it does. I'm pretty sure even Hockney made it clear that he wasn't taking away these artists' obvious talent or skill.

For example, "And as Hockney himself pointed out, “optical devices certainly don’t paint pictures…" The old masters weren't wizards, but they produced great art nonetheless... hence why they are cherished. As great artists and intellectuals. There is no over-exaggeration of their greatness here. It is the truth. Every era has its great artists or artworks that are remembered. The great artists are all there now to look at, to understand. The strengths and weaknesses can be seen. You can do with it as you wish. As artists we should be the people that fantasize the least about the old works, and instead realize them for what they were as well as the lessons that go along with each artist's art and life.

[Anonymous No.1834178]

>>1834138
>My entire position has been that "old masters" are not a monolithic group.

1. That's a crass overstatement and it's probably an attempt to suggest something along the lines: Not all old masters X, ergo no old masters X. After all you are trying to blanket this whole thing. But if you're attempting say they weren't acting in strict uniosin of each other, that's inconsequential. No shit sherlock, they competed against each for patronage.

2. To really suggest they weren't monolithic also means they didn't share the same resources, didn't adhere to the same styles, the same subjects, didn't even have the same clients. You might as well say there were no guilds, because how the operated and selected apprentices to imitate the master refutes your whole claim.

3. So if you're going to continue to say some bullshit generic statement I'm going to continue to spew hyperbolic statements on my end. Your word of the day is useless on me.

Pop quiz sugar-tits!

Erhand Schon produced a series of anamorphic woodcuts in the 16th century helping to popularize them. Guess what anamorph artist used to map them out?

>"They weren't monolithic, so not everybody who did anamorphs used a device
Yeah okay honey, if you say so.

> "Some of them were so awesome they could just eyeball it until they got it right. Wood plates were like a dime a dozen then, but those devices were difficult to bother with."
Just fucking stop already, you dumb bitch.

[Anonymous No.1834185]

>>1834152
>the usage of these tools don't lower the value of the old masters' as much as you say it does.

Okay, except I said the opposite and suggested that they were practical and hip to them and accepted their use.They thought the ends justified the means, very practical way of thinking. I also said they were a part of scientific inquiries, perspective being the biggest. And I also said Kemp wrote an entire book about that. So yeah okay if you say I said otherwise well then okay.

[Anonymous No.1834214]

>>1834178
>"old masters" are not all the same is an overstatement
Seriously?
>it's probably an attempt to use this logical fallacy that you never actually used
Wat

Also please learn what monolithic means- to suggest that artists from the proto-renaissance to romantic periods had no variety (or competed with each other) is beyond retarded.

You admit to spewing hyperbolic drivel, is it that hard to just admit you're trolling

[Anonymous No.1834240]

>>1834214
Monolithic means to be like in orgin or to have a same caste. Given how art is passed down through tradition, and dissipated, you're so wrong.

Your drivel is predictable, and is a blanketed attempt to dismiss particular facts. You cling to something trivial and ambiguous, basically to dismiss an upsetting discovery. Don't pretend your providing soberiety here with your claim, you're not.

If not all used them, then what of any substance have you added to the convesation? Nothing! It's like saying not all water is from rain in a conversation about rising sea level. You've offered nothing for others to chew on, and tried to shrug off a disagreeable fact. You're just a dumb bitch incapable of knowing her own stupidity and afraid others will take away your magic art wizards by accepting a simple fact of history-- optical devices were used. Your "not all" bullshit gives nothing distinguishing to work with and does move the conversation. You're basically worthless here.

Not all old master were not monolithic though. Bam! I just blew your basic claim to shreds, using your play. I win.

All the old masters used an optical apparatus of some kind, they were common knowledge. Unless one of the old masters specifically said they didn't use stuff never ever, they were all using the stuff. Bam! Just blew your claim to shreds again, using my own counter bullshit. I win again.

A-L-L the old masters think you're dumb monolithic bitch.

[Anonymous No.1834242]

>>1834240
*doesnt move the conversation

[Anonymous No.1834322]

> conversation
>15 year olds first troll
Pick one

[Anonymous No.1834367]

>>1834240
>dismiss dismiss dismiss facts fax fax
I haven't dismissed anything, this is just part of your strawman argument. You (admittedly) spouted hyperbole, I called you on it, and now you're working really hard to defend your position by pretending I'm arguing something that I'm not. You've been on this "art wizard" shit for sometime, but where in my own posts do I imply such a thing? Yet you still trudge on with your hyperboles, claiming "all the old masters used an optical apparatus of some kind", even though there are examples posted in this very fucking thread that prove you wrong, which you continually ignore because knocking down strawmen is easier for you.

>every single old master used optical devices
>"uh actually they didn't all do that, only some did"
>NO UR RETARD HAHA

[Anonymous No.1834373]

>>1834367
Not all old masters were not monolithic. Bam! It still works. I win yet again.

You haven't offered shit in any substance to this, you dumb bitch. Names and artifacts from scholar sources show historic use and all you got is a word of the day about old masters. Whoopy. Keep crying strawman you stupid cunt. That's all you got to lean on.

ALL the old masters still think you're a dumb monolithic cunt.

[Anonymous No.1834376]

>>1834373
You are so very mad right now

[Anonymous No.1834428]

>>1834376
Still winning

[Anonymous No.1834447]

experimental proof was delivered in "tim's vermeer" and has btfo doubts like these >>1833330 once and for all.
they even managed to duplicate small, previously unnoticed errors (the distorted pattern on harpsichord) of the original painting