Does the Art of Science Vitiate the Science of Art? Essay

INTRODUCTION   Why there would be ripples in the modern art world, if a 17th century artist is found to have used an instrument to perfect his art? It all started when David Hockney, a British artist, started his research on artists, mainly of the Renaissance Period, when observed some ‘suspicious details’ in the works of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), an artist of Holland, who, like many of his contemporaries had failed to make his rank in his time and thus struggled all along, before getting recognized and appreciated posthumously. The fact that he could master only 30 paintings indicates about the roadblocks he had before him.   However, he has been ‘rediscovered’ presently and his works are now lauded for its wonderful details, which are found to be one up in his time, mainly for their precision. The Situation It was that precision, which caught the fancy of David the researcher. Stunned by the perfect perspectives and light distortions in Vermeer’s paintings. David delved deep into matter and came out with a conclusion that Vermeer might have used a refracting device, such as a ‘Camera Obscura’, to achieve that incredible degree of precision in the details in his paintings. Camera Obscura It is one of the early optical instruments, presumed to have been invented in the late Renaissance period, around the time Galileo, the inventor of Telescope. However, Hockney`s new evidence seems to suggest that the usage of magnifying tools like Camera Obscura were there well before that. That’s a good finding. The Art of Science Camera Obscura is a light-tight box with a small whole on one side, through which an image of an outside object can be projected onto a wall or piece of paper. The resulting image will be projected upside down. This is due to the fact that the reflected rays of light, which enter the box, do not spread out but traverse and reorganize, before reappearing as an upside down reflection. The size of the pinhole determines the sharpness of the reflected image, as well as the degree of diffraction and the level of light sensitivity. The narrower the passage of light, the lesser sensitive is the image. Moreover, narrow holes result in sharper projections and a better image resolution – since the resulting circle of confusion, the distortion of bright areas caused by the shape of the pinhole, will be smaller. This situation also calls to define the resultant diffraction from a particularly small pinhole, which causes a rather unfocused projection of the image. This phenomenon can be explained by the wave theory of light, which states that light behaves like a wave. Diffraction, in this case, refers to the dispersion of waves (light) when passing through the pinhole, which produces a hologram effect. The smaller and closer to the lights’ wavelength the hole is, larger the proportion is in the diffraction pattern, compared to a larger opening. To further increase the brightness and focus of the image, artists started to use a lens instead of the pinhole. It is really heartening to imagine that some of the artists of the Renaissance Period experimented on such nuances of diffraction towards gaining unbelievably realistic, almost photographic paintings. Vermeer’s Endeavor Situations indeed indicate that Vermeer might have used a Camera Obscura to enhance his paintings. Firstly, Vermeer didn’t seem to have used any sort of sketches or preparatory drawings while on his way towards producing paintings with incredibly realistic details and perspective in them. That couldn’t have happened if such works were done manually. His work, â€Å"Soldier and Laughing Girl†, where an amazingly detailed map can be seen hanging on the wall in the background, consolidates this assumption – even after zooming, the map seems to be an exact replication of a map at the time. How could he achieve such precision at one go, if he didn’t use any instrument? Another indication is the presence of bright, round reflections on reflective surfaces. Almost all the reflections in Vermeer’s paintings have an unusually circular shape. We now believe that these round reflections are circles of confusion, which are caused by the imperfection of the lens through which the image is reflected or can occur when the lens is not focused. Such unusually round reflections are distortions of bright areas caused by the shape of the pinhole of the Camera Obscura. One of the most famous examples of such a circle of confusion is the reflection in the girl’s earring in Vermeer`s masterpiece â€Å"The girl with the pearl earring.† Thirdly most of his paintings seem to take place in the same room. A reason for this could have been the size and weight of the apparatus. It might have been too laborious and time consuming to move the optic device in those days. Furthermore, in his painting â€Å"The Music Lesson†, there is a mirror on top of the piano, which reflects the leg of an object, which could have been a Camera Obscura. Science of Art Even though the indications point towards Vermeer’s using of optical instruments, that should be seen as a bold, and nonetheless creative endeavor, which aligns with the intellectual movements of that period – considering the treatise and texts about optics circulated then – only substantiates Vermeer’s contemporary approach towards his work, when people of 17th century had been exploring the possibilities of mirrors and lenses – it was then, even with low quality lenses and bad resolution, Vermeer and his colleagues would have been able to create incredibly detailed pictures. Lastly, the use of such instrument at that time could not have lessened the value of the art. It is assumed, that the painters using a Camera Obscura, merely used the projection of the image as a foundation, a sketch, on which they would paint. Since the projection of the image would be like a movie in color and every movement of the object would distort the artist drawing, only certain features of the object could be taken down on paper, leaving the rest to be done by the artist him/herself. CONCLUSION Artists of 17th century could not be totally dependent on Camera Obscura – they had to add in their own imagination, creativity and hard, manual labor. Attaining precision was just a part of their whole aim, and the attempt to achieve that by using an instrument cannot be hyped as something demeaning in the approach of the artists who did that. It is clear that those artists simply used Camera Obscura to increase precision or shorten the sketching time. There is nothing more in this useless debate, as the choice and combination of colors, the brush strokes, the shading, the technique and much more that take to make a great image, were done all by the artists themselves. To quote Hockney – â€Å"The lens can’t draw a line, only the hand can do that†, would be enough to block this controversy for once and all. Therefore this has nothing to do with any useless debate on the ethical violation of the creative processes involved in painting. It could have been so, if Vermeer did his works with blood, or stole or plagiarize someone else’s idea.