Hockney, Falco and the Sources of “Opticality” in Lorenzo Lotto's
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Leonardo_37-5_357-426 8/30/04 10:56 AM Page 397 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Rosetta Stone? Hockney, Falco and the Sources of “Opticality” in ABSTRACT In his book Secret Knowledge, Lorenzo Lotto’s Husband and Wife David Hockney proposes that the “optical quality” of Flemish art arose around 1420, because artists such as van Eyck then began to use optical devices for accurate projection of subject Christopher Tyler images onto the canvas. Al- though Hockney describes Lotto’s Man and Wife as the “Rosetta Stone” of his argument, the author’s analysis reveals that its perspective structure is incompatible with the logic of n his recent book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering senting these ideas [4], made it local optical projection. Regions I that should be geometrically the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters [1], David Hockney pro- clear that the kind of optics avail- coherent in an optical projection poses that the “optical quality” of Flemish art of the early 1400s able to Renaissance artists would display pronounced distortions, arose because the artists, van Eyck in particular, suddenly have had a narrow depth of focus while regions that should be began to use optical devices to create precise projections onto and a large degree of blurring in incoherent show no such distortions. Such detailed the canvas of the scenes they wished to depict. In presenting objects slightly outside the focused evidence, as well as the inability this case at a 2001 symposium on the issue [2], Hockney de- region. The look of an optical pro- of optical projection to capture scribed one particular painting as the “Rosetta Stone” of his jection would thus consist of a pro- the effect of windblown gar- argument, because it was the one that allowed the details of nounced fluctuation between sharp ments, is inconsistent with the optical hypothesis to be examined most accurately. That focus for objects in the focal plane Hockney’s claim. painting was Lorenzo Lotto’s Husband and Wife (1523–1524, and soft focus elsewhere through- also known as Portrait of a Married Couple) (Fig. 1). In it is de- out the image [5]. To create a true picted a tapestry tablecloth with a distinctive octagonal fea- “optical look” would indeed have entailed painting this fluc- ture at the center of the table. This feature has the curious tuating focus, which is typically seen in the photorealist works property that it seems to go out of focus as it recedes from the of our own times. No such fluctuating focus is seen in any other viewer. Hockney argues that this blurring is “proof” that Lotto Renaissance works; it seems to first appear in the 17th-century copied the detail of this pattern from an optical projection of paintings of Vermeer [6]. Moreover, many of the arguments a real tapestry in his studio, validating the idea that optical in Hockney’s book can be shown to be questionable under projection was in widespread use during the Renaissance (long critical examination, as specified in the accompanying mate- preceding the well-known 18th-century use of the camera ob- rial on the Leonardo web site [7]. scura by such artists as Canaletto and Joshua Reynolds). To address the above discrepancy, Hockney and his collab- Before considering the plausibility of Hockney’s specific orator Charles Falco, an optical specialist at the University of claim about the Lotto painting, we should consider that the Arizona, propose that the artists who used optical projection single patch of blur on this tablecloth makes a weak case for frequently changed the position of the lens to refocus on each the widespread use of optics, because it is the only Renaissance painting (in southern or northern European art) that exhibits Fig. 1. Lorenzo Lotto, Husband and Wife (also known as Portrait of a this particularity. In the art of the early Renaissance, both the Married Couple, 98 ϫ 118 cm, c. 1523–1524. (The State Hermitage geometric-perspective works of the Italians and the Flemish Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; reproduced with permission) works exploring optical and light effects are renowned for the precision of their outlines. When a freer style appeared with Titian, Tintoretto and Rubens (for an example, see the Rubens painting Bathsheba at the Fountain [c. 1635], available online at <http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rubens13.html>), a blurring extended throughout the painting, as opposed to the ap- pearance of a region of sharp focus spreading into blur. Even if Lotto had used optical projection, this isolated piece of evi- dence would not support a case for its widespread use. These considerations call into question the concept of an “optical look” that plays so great a role in Hockney’s account [3]. He associates this optical look with the high accuracy and strong shadowing of such artists as van Eyck and Caravaggio. In fact, however, Hockney’s own demonstrations (with David Graves), both for the book and at the 2001 conference pre- Christopher Tyler (neuroscientist), Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, 2318 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA 94115, U.S.A. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Web: <http://webexhibits.org/hockneyoptics>. © 2004 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 37, No. 5, pp. 397–401, 2004 397 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/leon/article-pdf/37/5/397/1572555/0024094041955971.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 Leonardo_37-5_357-426 8/30/04 10:56 AM Page 398 shown by the type of convex mirror that Hockney and Falco propose to have been used by Lotto [13]. The optical projec- tion hypothesis would require the pro- jection to have been refocused in this way at least three times from the front to the back of the octagonal figure of this tap- estry. However, this hypothetical refo- cusing is contradicted by the appearance of blur at the top of this figure. If Lotto readjusted an optical projection in order to avoid blurring of one region of the painting, why did he assiduously paint the blur in another (central) region? Conversely, if he wished to use the blur to enhance the impression of depth, why Fig. 2. Husband and Wife, detail of the octagonal design on the tapestry, with ellipses showing did he not employ it in the receding re- Hockney’s estimate of the size of the largest clear zone of optical projection superimposed at gions of the tablecloth (where the pat- three successive locations on the design. (Imposed lines © Christopher Tyler) All features within one of these clear zones should have coherent perspective. tern is actually depicted with high clarity)? Hockney and Falco do not ad- dress these inherent contradictions in area of a scene, so as to generate an to be refocused multiple times both lat- this interpretation of their “Rosetta image that would match the perceptual erally and in depth. To make his case, Stone.” experience of clear focus in all regions therefore, Hockney would have to estab- To press the case, we may follow Falco’s of the observed scene [8,9]. The telltale lish the joint occurrence of accurate local geometric analysis to its logical conclu- sign of this refocusing is, they suggest, the and discordant global perspective in the sion to provide a complete reconstruc- minor inaccuracies in the geometry of same painting. This conclusion, inci- tion of how the central octagon was the projection that they uncover in sev- dentally, precludes the idea that optical painted. Because it recedes into blur, the eral paintings: Lines in objects and tex- projection was extensively used during central region of this pattern must, using tures that should be continuous seem to the Renaissance, since most Renaissance Falco and Hockney’s hypothesis, have show shifts in angle, with reconvergence perspective paintings are geometrically been painted without readjustment of its to slightly different vanishing points. This accurate both locally and globally. optical projection [14]. This region of reconvergence of local perspective lines The painting that Hockney and Falco the painting should therefore have been is offered as a second line of evidence choose as their prime example, Lotto’s copied to exactly match the optical pro- that some Renaissance masters used op- Husband and Wife, which was painted a jection. It follows that the geometry tical projection in their paintings. Hock- century after the supposed transition to within this pattern element should be ney mentions that he was alerted to this opticality, exhibits perspective only in the perfectly coherent, exactly adhering to effect by the slight discrepancies between tapestry. The evidence in Hockney’s the laws of perspective projection. Tech- frames in his own photocollage experi- book is slender, consisting entirely of a nically, these laws imply (1) that each set ments [10], in which he would build up slight distortion in the angle of the bor- of parallel lines within this octagonal pat- a wide-angle image from dozens of pho- der parallels [11]. A similar shift in the tern should project to a single vanishing tographs taken by shifting the camera a parallels surrounding the rosette was also point and (2) that all the different van- few degrees between each shot. described in Hockney and Falco’s 2003 ishing points should lie at the same hori- It is important to be clear that there is conference presentation [12], although zon level. This alignment of vanishing no evidence that Renaissance artists in they did not comment on the fact that it points along the horizon is a geometric the 15th century used optical devices is impossible to get parallel projection of rule of perspective that must be followed other than this concept of a contrast be- the borders onto a vertical canvas using by any undistorted optical projection.