[On Painting] On Painting and Photography
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Duane
Nov 5, 2006, 7:10:23 AM11/5/06
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It is easy to understand why the camera was considered to be a miracle of science when it was invented in early 1800s. Even though I understand the basic scientific principles involved, it is still like magic to me. That magic is partially responsible for the several cameras strewn around my house: antique cameras, medium format cameras, snapshot cameras, ludicrously complex uber cameras, cameras that make coffee etc and, God help me, now video cameras. The hell of it is I don’t really take many pictures. My friend, Shaun Irving, made the coolest camera I have ever seen: using the lens from an old submarine periscope, he transformed a mail truck into a giant, mobile pinhole camera. Here’s a page that describes his project (click the buttons on the right side of the box.)
Painting from photos has a stigma attached to it that arises from the fact that the painter is working from filtered or second-hand imagery (filtered by the lens, by the film or by the digital film) and because a picture flattens the world for him, which allows for a more easy translation onto canvas. The stigma is that working from photos is slightly unoriginal and a technical shortcut or visual crutch. Painting and photography have always had an uneasy relationship and that unease continues today. While there are some painters who will proudly tell you the model number of the projector they use, I suspect many more are not quite as forthcoming, or will at least downplay the degree of their dependence on the camera.
I generally don’t work from photographs and my reasons for this have nothing to do with the above, nor do they have anything to do with the technical specs of the camera vs. the eye. A side note: eye/camera comparisons are generally apples vs. oranges-- the eye, of course, does not see things in a series of static pictures. It is more akin to a data stream that is constantly being updated and refreshed, adding layers to our mental representation of our subject. So I suppose a more accurate comparison would me with a movie camera rather than a film camera. But in terms of raw vision power the dynamic range and resolution of the eye is far superior to any camera. However, this is changing: even now there is inexpensive software that can, through multiple exposures, begin to emulate the dynamic range of our eyes. There is also a large format camera, designed by artist Clifford Ross that can capture images in mind-boggling detail. Here’s a NY Times article about him and his camera. And here is an example; the above image is the entire image while the one below it is a detail that corresponds with the area within the red box:
So one fine day we will be able to capture, with the press of a button, what our eye truly sees, literally a window on the world. Would this necesarily make us better painters? Of course not. We have all seen paintings that look “just like a photo” that have all the warmth and depth of a DMV license photo. We may admire the patience and discipline that went into making it, but we find ourselves forgetting about it two minutes later, like a flashy movie full of special effects but no interesting characters. The same goes for paintings from nature: copying is copying, be it from photos or from life. A verisimilitude requires considerably more than making a painted facsimile, regardless of the source.
Seeing and painting involves all of our senses. When I paint, say, an urban landscape in the late evening and early morning darkness, as I did recently, I am responding to the isolation and quiet of an empty street, of the sounds of distant sirens, of the smell of exhaust, the thick humidity of a Summer night etc. In other words, when I paint something, I am responding to more than a few photons striking my retina. Of course, it is possible to have a photograph trigger the memory and thus the senses and so become a jumping off point for a painting, but to me that process always feels distant and cold, like I am painting a veneer rather than a truth. I am, however, constantly open to the possibilities of photography in my work but so far I have not been able to use it in a way that is satisfying to me.
I should say here that I have nothing against the use of photographs in painting and I sometimes use them myself, though in a peripheral way. I do think that using photos without understanding their limitations can be deadly to a painter, and to understand their limitations one must also understand that from which they came— nature. Otherwise I think it becomes all too easy, especially for a beginner, to become a slave to the photograph. That being said, to denigrate the use of photos or optical devices in painting would mean denigrating some great painters, including Vermeer and his camera obscura. Obviously no optical device can make a great painting-- I haven’t seen many paintings as great as Vermeer’s lately, and yet painters have had access to camera obscuras for a long time.
Recently there was a well-publicized controversy over David Hockney’s theory that many great European masters used optical devices to aid them in their work. It has long been known that Vermeer probably used a camera obscura, but Hockney suggests that many others, like Ingres, Velazquez, van Eyck, Rubens etc also used some kind of optical device. I won’t go into details about the detective work that lead him to this conclusion, but suffice it to say there are some substantial disagreements over the weight of his proof.
To me, the whole episode was little more than an interesting side note from art history, like whether Michelangelo stood or lay on his back when painting the Sistine Chapel. My friend, painter and fellow RMC alumnus, Timothy Stotz, wrote a letter to The New Yorker in response to the Hockney article “Into the Looking Glass.” It was published as follows:
“Like David Hockney, I am a painter, and not an art historian, but I think he is wrong in his theory that Ingres and other Old Masters used optical devices to produce their work. ("The Looking Glass" by Lawrence Wechsler, January 31). As I write, a drawing of Bishop Borja by Velazquez and a copy of it by a nineteenth century Spanish master are exhibited together in Madrid. Assuming that both men, or even only latter, used a lens, and that they shared the goal of verisimilitude, why would the two drawings not be identical? And yet they demonstrably are not.
Which raises the question of why any artist draws from another's work. Clearly, hundreds of years of master-apprentice relations prove that one artist copies another in order to build "eye-mind-hand" tools. Hockney does a grave disservice to draftsmanship by failing to note that "lens" is a metaphor for the eye, and not a replacement for it. Drawing is a pulling forth of ideas, not a replication of images. And ideas are cheap, powerful, and portable, unlike devices.”
--
Posted by Duane to On Painting at 11/05/2006 03:38:00 AM
Painting from photos has a stigma attached to it that arises from the fact that the painter is working from filtered or second-hand imagery (filtered by the lens, by the film or by the digital film) and because a picture flattens the world for him, which allows for a more easy translation onto canvas. The stigma is that working from photos is slightly unoriginal and a technical shortcut or visual crutch. Painting and photography have always had an uneasy relationship and that unease continues today. While there are some painters who will proudly tell you the model number of the projector they use, I suspect many more are not quite as forthcoming, or will at least downplay the degree of their dependence on the camera.
I generally don’t work from photographs and my reasons for this have nothing to do with the above, nor do they have anything to do with the technical specs of the camera vs. the eye. A side note: eye/camera comparisons are generally apples vs. oranges-- the eye, of course, does not see things in a series of static pictures. It is more akin to a data stream that is constantly being updated and refreshed, adding layers to our mental representation of our subject. So I suppose a more accurate comparison would me with a movie camera rather than a film camera. But in terms of raw vision power the dynamic range and resolution of the eye is far superior to any camera. However, this is changing: even now there is inexpensive software that can, through multiple exposures, begin to emulate the dynamic range of our eyes. There is also a large format camera, designed by artist Clifford Ross that can capture images in mind-boggling detail. Here’s a NY Times article about him and his camera. And here is an example; the above image is the entire image while the one below it is a detail that corresponds with the area within the red box:
So one fine day we will be able to capture, with the press of a button, what our eye truly sees, literally a window on the world. Would this necesarily make us better painters? Of course not. We have all seen paintings that look “just like a photo” that have all the warmth and depth of a DMV license photo. We may admire the patience and discipline that went into making it, but we find ourselves forgetting about it two minutes later, like a flashy movie full of special effects but no interesting characters. The same goes for paintings from nature: copying is copying, be it from photos or from life. A verisimilitude requires considerably more than making a painted facsimile, regardless of the source.
Seeing and painting involves all of our senses. When I paint, say, an urban landscape in the late evening and early morning darkness, as I did recently, I am responding to the isolation and quiet of an empty street, of the sounds of distant sirens, of the smell of exhaust, the thick humidity of a Summer night etc. In other words, when I paint something, I am responding to more than a few photons striking my retina. Of course, it is possible to have a photograph trigger the memory and thus the senses and so become a jumping off point for a painting, but to me that process always feels distant and cold, like I am painting a veneer rather than a truth. I am, however, constantly open to the possibilities of photography in my work but so far I have not been able to use it in a way that is satisfying to me.
I should say here that I have nothing against the use of photographs in painting and I sometimes use them myself, though in a peripheral way. I do think that using photos without understanding their limitations can be deadly to a painter, and to understand their limitations one must also understand that from which they came— nature. Otherwise I think it becomes all too easy, especially for a beginner, to become a slave to the photograph. That being said, to denigrate the use of photos or optical devices in painting would mean denigrating some great painters, including Vermeer and his camera obscura. Obviously no optical device can make a great painting-- I haven’t seen many paintings as great as Vermeer’s lately, and yet painters have had access to camera obscuras for a long time.
Recently there was a well-publicized controversy over David Hockney’s theory that many great European masters used optical devices to aid them in their work. It has long been known that Vermeer probably used a camera obscura, but Hockney suggests that many others, like Ingres, Velazquez, van Eyck, Rubens etc also used some kind of optical device. I won’t go into details about the detective work that lead him to this conclusion, but suffice it to say there are some substantial disagreements over the weight of his proof.
To me, the whole episode was little more than an interesting side note from art history, like whether Michelangelo stood or lay on his back when painting the Sistine Chapel. My friend, painter and fellow RMC alumnus, Timothy Stotz, wrote a letter to The New Yorker in response to the Hockney article “Into the Looking Glass.” It was published as follows:
“Like David Hockney, I am a painter, and not an art historian, but I think he is wrong in his theory that Ingres and other Old Masters used optical devices to produce their work. ("The Looking Glass" by Lawrence Wechsler, January 31). As I write, a drawing of Bishop Borja by Velazquez and a copy of it by a nineteenth century Spanish master are exhibited together in Madrid. Assuming that both men, or even only latter, used a lens, and that they shared the goal of verisimilitude, why would the two drawings not be identical? And yet they demonstrably are not.
Which raises the question of why any artist draws from another's work. Clearly, hundreds of years of master-apprentice relations prove that one artist copies another in order to build "eye-mind-hand" tools. Hockney does a grave disservice to draftsmanship by failing to note that "lens" is a metaphor for the eye, and not a replacement for it. Drawing is a pulling forth of ideas, not a replication of images. And ideas are cheap, powerful, and portable, unlike devices.”
--
Posted by Duane to On Painting at 11/05/2006 03:38:00 AM
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