Abstract
The debate on whether optics were used to construct perspective images during the Renaissance was reignited by the artist David Hockney’s book Secret Knowledge of the Masters. While others have already discussed this in length, what Hockney brings to the debate are his insights as an artist. What this chapter attempts to do is to explore his thesis in terms of its implications for 3D computer graphics—the latest extension to the Renaissance perspective. Hockney’s assertion that artists from the quattrocento onward painted from mirror and lens-projected images has its implications for the projected images of 3D computer graphics today. Just as technology informed the Renaissance artist on ways of seeing and representing natural phenomena, 3D computer graphics today uses algorithms to simulate these same phenomena. However, neither process can ever approach the absolute clarity of Nature. Attempts to replicate natural phenomena in images are quests for realism—begun in the Renaissance and continued in 3D computer graphics. However, the various techniques used can only ever make the images produced seem real or at least real enough. In the case of the Renaissance artist, this was in the form of painterly techniques to generate the illusion of clarity. For 3D computer graphics, while the mathematical algorithms are adjusted to simulate nature they often simply imitate the quattrocento Masters’ techniques. However, while the Renaissance artist never lost sight of their role in interpreting what they see, 3D computer graphics is supposed to be underpinned by the certainties of its apparent scientific veracity. Hence, is this certainty deserved or is it merely that science and art intertwined in ways that mean one is simply reliant on the other?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
His thesis is based on the premise that the use of optical devices in the quattrocento developed both ultra-real representations of Nature and de-natured (by its optical sub/in-version) what was seen in these projections.
- 2.
Little hard evidence exists for the actual application of optical mirrors in the construction of perspectival images (central to Hockney ’s thesis); although the necessary technology was clearly available (Hockney claims many of the techniques for its application remain hidden due to the secrecy of the various competing guilds).
- 3.
A concave mirror can be used to project a focused image from an opening in a wall onto a darkened interior wall.
- 4.
The systematic, rectilinear, organisation of an emergent urbanism—reflected on a larger rural scale—was fuelled by merchant capitalism: rural roads flanked by Cyprus pines in Tuscany and played out in the dialogical and physical relationship between merchants and the metayers (see [11]).
- 5.
In support of Hockney ’s thesis, his experiments with a window and mirror arrangement reveal the similarly sharply contracted pupils of the subjects of his experiments and those depicted by Jan van Eyck and others. This suggests that, as Hockney found, a strong light such as the full sun is needed to generate a ‘natural-looking’ projection against the wall of an adjacent room.
- 6.
Neural network theorists suggest that our internal representation of the world is an abstraction or reduced encoding of our perception of solids comprised of coloured-in surfaces with continuous depth. Our ganglion cells separate retinal image edges encoding objects by their vertices followed by regions of uniform brightness and boundaries separating regions out which are subsequently painted in with brightness values [13].
- 7.
It is an ironic truism that Foley et al. [4] chose as their subject matter for the front cover of 3D Computer Graphics a computer model of Vermeer’s The Music Lesson. Perhaps they did not use another of van Eyk’s paintings, such as Chacellor Rolin (1436), because it would have been too complicated. This begs the question of the complexity of the paintbrush compared with 3D computer graphics , and how much information can be conveyed in a single brush stroke. Perhaps the physically reconstructed room was chosen over alternatives also for the same reasons.
References
Benoit, B.: Chat Sofa/Carlo Colombo: Modelled in 3Ds Max 2012 and Marvelous Designer, rendered in Vray. www.bbb3viz.com (2011). Accessed 10 May 2012
Coyne, R.: Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age. The MIT Press, Massachusetts (1995)
Edgerton, S.Y.: The Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry: Art and Science on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution. Cornell University Press, Ithaca (1991)
Foley, J.D., van Dam, A., Feiner, S.K., Hughes, J.F.: 3D Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice. Addison-Wesley, New York (2002)
Gombrich, E.H.: Meditations on a Hobby Horse and other Essays on the Theory of Art. Phaidon, London 1978
Gombrich, E.H.: The Image and the Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. Phaidon, Oxford (1982)
Gombrich, E.H.: Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. Princeton University Press, Princeton (2000)
Hockney, D.: Secret Knowledge, Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters. Thames & Hudson, London (2001)
Kemp, M.: The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat. Yale University Press, New Haven (1990)
Kemp, M.: The Oxford History of Western Art. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2000)
Lefebvre, H.: The Production of Space. Blackwell, Oxford (1991)
Manovich, L.: The Mapping of Space: Perspective, Radar, and 3D computer graphics. http://manovich.net/TEXT/mapping.html. Accessed 18 Aug 2012
Marr, D.: Vision, a computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information. Freeman and Company, San Francisco (1982)
Mitchell, W.J.: The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-photographic Era. The MIT Press, London (1994)
Mitchell, W.J., McCullough, M.: Digital Design Media. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York (1995)
Panofsky, E.: Perspective as Symbolic Form (Wood, C. (trans.)). Zone Books, New York (1991)
Perez-Gomez, A., Pelletier, L.: Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge. The MIT Press, Cambridge (1997)
Richens, P.: Computer aided art direction. In: Penz, F., Thomas, M (eds.) Cinema & Architecture. Méliès, Mallet-Stevens, Multimedia, British Film Institute, London (1997)
Richens, P.: The piranesi system for interactive rendering. In: CAAD Futures 99, Atlanta, June 1999
Ruskin, J.: The Elements of Perspective. Routledge, London (1907)
Yorke, T., (photographer) in Steadman, J.P.: Vermeer’s Camera: Uncovering the Truth behind the Masterpieces, Oxford University Press, USA (2002)
Talbott, S.L.: The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst. O’Reilly & Associates. http://pfaff.newton.cam.ac.uk/mirrors/n…com/people/staff/stevet/fdnc/ch22.html (1995). Accessed 3 July 2002
Tufte, E.R.: Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Graphics, Cheshire (1997)
Wertheim, M.: The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet. Doubleday, Sydney (1999)
Woo, M., Neider, J., Davis, T.: OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Version 1.1, 2nd edn. Addison-Wesley, Massachusetts (1997)
© Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, Vienna (10-05-2012)
© RMN, Musée du Louvre, Stéphane Maréchalle, Paris (10-05-2012]
© TATE Modern, London (10-05-2012)
© San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego (10-05-2012)
© The National Gallery, London (10-05-2012)
Supplied by Royal Collection Trust, © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2012, Buckingham Palace, London (10-05-2012)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wyeld, T. (2013). The Implications of David Hockney Thesis for 3D Computer Graphics. In: Marchese, F., Banissi, E. (eds) Knowledge Visualization Currents. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4303-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4303-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-4302-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-4303-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)