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Author Topic: Caravaggio - early photographer?  (Read 1747 times)

Christopher Sanderson

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Caravaggio - early photographer?
« on: August 11, 2011, 12:19:41 pm »

I went to Canada's National Gallery last week to see an exhibit of Caravaggio & Students Exhibit. Highly recommended if you can get there this Summer. The lighting, technique and realism are quite remarkable. Maybe there was an extraordinary reason for this...

Apparently Caravaggio never sketched his canvasses and now evidence has surfaced that he used a camera obscura and luminescent powder to basically burn the images to canvas before painting. A technique he may have learned from Da Vinci.

Some argue that if true, this diminishes his genius. Far from it, I think it increases it. But go see the paintings if you can.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2011, 03:49:18 pm by Chris Sanderson »
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Kirk Gittings

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Re: Caravaggio - an early photographer?
« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2011, 01:56:06 pm »

Interesting. That article is a bit sensationalist. calling Caravaggio a photographers infers his final product was a photograph. At most he might be called a painter who MIGHT have used some early photographic techniques to compose his paintings.
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Kirk Gittings

Christopher Sanderson

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Re: Caravaggio - an early photographer?
« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2011, 03:37:25 pm »

That article is a bit sensationalist...

No doubt! Sensation is grist for the Mail. But David Hockney's involvement gives the story some traction.

But there certainly are contrarians to the theory.

It is fascinating to me that the contrarians follow the idea that somehow a photographic technique is cheating!
« Last Edit: August 11, 2011, 03:48:25 pm by Chris Sanderson »
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fredjeang

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Re: Caravaggio - an early photographer?
« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2011, 04:08:12 pm »

When I was younger I used to earn quite big money doing Caravaggio copies for rich collectionists.

Caravaggio is very pleasant to paint and copy. Not a long time ago I went to a friend painter'sa studio and he showed me a Caravaggio I did in his studio when I was young that I didn't even remembered but never been finished (the San Geronimo).
The painting was on wood and when I saw it I inmediatly realized that I would not been able now to re-do that or even finish it. It stayed as it was and it was the last copy of my life.

As a funny anecdote, when I was doing the Caravaggio copies, I had an enquiry for the police specialized in art and they first phoned me and then made sure that the formats I was using and techniques where clearly labeled copies. Actually, if you go to the Louvre and copy, they do not allow you to use the same dimensions and you are obliged to put "copy" on the canvas. At that time I was quite impressed and uncomfortable with this police enquiry on me because they where pretty serious and I was just having fun and making easy money.

He did used the camera obscura, that is admited, but you also might understand that at this level of painting techniques (they started very early) they could reproduce mentally the lightning they wanted to so it's not exactly using some tools and follow strict rational steps.

He didn't sketch, actually if you want to copy Caravaggio correctly you need to paint directly wich makes it harder, but in fact from a contemporary painter technique, Caravaggio is not the hardest painter to reproduce, it's almost brutal and basic (I'm strictly talking about technique here). A nowday kid with good hability and dedication would make it easy because we are faster, and we have heritate unconsciensly all the art history since there. A today's kid brain is way faster and efficient.

So you know Chris: put yourself in front of a canva and start so you can have one at home, but remember to put "copy".

Ps: oh yeah, I forgot: it's much (much much much) easier to copy Caravaggio than understanding the video codecs. :P
« Last Edit: August 11, 2011, 08:04:12 pm by fredjeang »
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fredjeang

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Re: Caravaggio - an early photographer?
« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2011, 05:01:58 am »

...It is fascinating to me that the contrarians follow the idea that somehow a photographic technique is cheating!

When I was student in fine arts, I used to spend most of my time in the photo lab of the school. It was very very badly perceived by the teachers.

They where very much in the pompous idea that photography is a minor art, or at least a very limited art, therefore poor. This debate is as old as photography but what I want to stress here is that I perceived directly the hostility fine arts institutions had on photography.

In fact we had the photo lab (very well equiped) just as a module training like echings. If you used it very little it was fine, but if you showed more interest it was the heresy.

Several teachers came to warn me about my "too close" interest for using photography techniques, stipulating me that if I keep going like that they would send me to Arles or Louis Lumiere school. Man! what a mistake I did not following their advices...

So whatever "help" or "trick" that can be use in painting, and specially the tricks that make it "easier" are received by a bunch of arrogant critics as a way to demistify talent.   
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