All A Matter Of Perspective

international | arts and media | other press Monday January 17, 2005 12:37 by pat c

Hockney 'was wrong' over art copying claims

So what is the truth behind this latest kerfuffle in the Art World? Is Hockney merely obscurely projecting his own opinions onto the work of Renaissance artists? Or have they all lost any sense of perspective? Read the New Scientist story and make your own mind up.

pat c

Hockney 'was wrong' over art copying claims

Computer analysis of a 17th century painting shows that the artist did not, as has been claimed, use optical devices to project a perfect image of the scene onto his canvas. The researcher behind the analysis believes his findings undermine many aspects of a theory recently put forward by the painter David Hockney.

In his 2001 book Secret Knowledge, Hockney set out to show that the heightened realism of many Renaissance paintings was achieved by projecting images of the subject onto the canvas, which the artists then traced. This would have required artists to use a device such as a camera obscura.

But Hockney's theory is contentious among both art historians and physicists. It implies that from around 1420 artists were using sophisticated optics to project images onto the surfaces they were painting. Yet it was not until hundreds of years later, in the early 18th century, that artists like the Venetian Canaletto are generally acknowledged to have used such projectors. "The issues I raised have disturbed some people," Hockney says.

But next week, Stanford University physicist and art historian David Stork, who has been a fierce critic of Hockney's idea, will present evidence at the Electronic Imaging Conference in San Jose, California, US, that he believes show Hockney is wrong.

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