CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION
Secret Knowledge, Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters
New and expanded edition with 510 illustrations, 442 in colour
New York, Viking Studio, 2006
Review by Francesco Mazzaferro
Part Two
[Original Version: June-July 2016 - New Version April 2019]
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| Fig. 16) The Italian, French, German and Spanish versions of Secret Knowledge |
Go Back to Part One
What was
the reception of Secret Knowledge,
and what impact did it have in particular on the development of art history
studies at the beginning of the new century? We will try to examine the issue
by considering two different aspects.
In the
second part of this essay we are focusing on the debate on the techniques
followed by Caravaggio to prepare and produce his paintings, with particular
reference to the role of optical instruments (mirrors, lenses and darkrooms).
In the case of Michelangelo Merisi, Hockney seems to have confirmed and
supplemented the insights and the experiments of a line of studies that has
origins in Italian criticism, and of which he was at least in part aware.
Already in 1952, Roberto Longhi [35] mentioned the darkroom as a working tool
by Caravaggio, in a short essay published a year after the famous Milan
exhibition he curated in 1951, which marked the rediscovery of the artist. That
stream of studies was enlivened in Italy by Roberta Lapucci,
the director of the Studio Art Centers International (SACI) in Florence. It is
there that studies related to restoration gave new vigour to Hockney’s theories
on the use by Caravaggio of optical instruments.
The theme -
it is clear - is still today a source of controversy (and we are, from this
point of view, simple compilers); we are well aware that there are other
perspectives than those documented here. Marco Cardinali and Maria
Beatrice De Ruggeri, for example, analysed the X-rays of the paintings of the Contarelli
Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi in
Rome [36], concluding that Caravaggio worked here on the basis of profile
designs and therefore did not always make use of incisions on the canvas, a
technique on which Hockney based his hypothesis. Moreover, their reading of the incisions
technique was entirely different from that of Hockney: in their view, the incisions
had helped Caravaggio to draw a first pattern, from which he then developed
more complex versions as "pentimenti".
He was therefore able to device a "functional design", by painting
directly on the canvas without preparatory design, and adopting procedures that
allowed him to save time and to immediately change everything painted as soon
as he did not like it. There was no reference, in their survey, to projections
of images through optical instruments.
Rather than
drawing irrefutable conclusions, what we are here aiming at is instead to document
how David Hockney’s atypical intervention in the history of art discussion has
contributed over the last fifteen years, in particular in the case of Caravaggio, to develop a wide range
of research themes, also in Italy. It is sufficient to
say that the new frontier of research today is to search for the confirmation
of a totally revolutionary hypothesis, according to which Caravaggio would have
used minerals (salts of mercury and silver) to treat the canvas. Those
chemicals would have allowed him to fix directly an impression of the images he
projected on the canvas with the lens in the camera obscura. Moreover, he would have used luminescent colours
made from crushed fireflies, i.e. tints which reflected in the dark, so that he
could paint in obscure rooms. Roberta Lapucci explained that she replicated
successfully the process in the laboratory: "The stratigraphic analysis revealed that often there is a thin layer of
mercury or silver nitrate, mixed with rabbit glue: a photosensitive compound,
applied under the paint layer. In the camera obscura the thus treated canvas was exposed to light and blackened, forming a
kind of negative of the projected image”
[37]. The scholar has anticipated several times to the press her intention to
finalise the imminent publication of a study on "Caravaggio photographer" [38]. Such a discovery, if confirmed, would go
far beyond what Hockney had argued in Secret
Knowledge.
In the
upcoming third and final part, we will consider instead the broader debate on
the role of optics in art. We will first examine the papers presented at the
conference held in New York in 2001 [39] (which made evident the differences
between the positions of the scholars on the fundamentals theses by David
Hockney and Falco Charles), then the Florence conference in 2008 [40] (which
made a nearly ten-year assessment on their thesis) and finally the research
project Optisches Wissen in der
Geschichte der Malerei [41] (Optical knowledge in the history of painting)
of the Hertziana Library in Rome in 2011. We will discover that, fifteen years
later, many of the differences of opinion have continued to persist on the use
of optics in art history from the fifteenth century, but we will also find
confirmation that a new era of experimental studies (based on Hockney’s
empirical method) is well underway. An example is the reconstruction of the
three paintings in the Contarelli Chapel operated by the Caravaggio Research
Centre in 2010, based on the analysis of Caravaggio’s pictures as human-sized
photographic reproduction of real people [42].
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| Fig. 17) Caravaggio Research Centre, Reconstruction of St. Matthew's martyrdom, 2010 Source: http://www.factum-arte.com/pag/26/The-Caravaggio-Research-Centre |
In love with Caravaggio
To no
painter Hockney devoted so much space and so much passion in Secret Knowledge as to Caravaggio; in
the language of an artist like him who lived for many years in California,
Caravaggio was in many ways the forerunner of the Hollywood studios or perhaps,
as one might say forgetting the cinematography, the most advanced
representative of a Baroque world linked to the theatrical research of marvel.
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| Fig. 18) Caravaggio, Young Sick Bacchus, 1593-1594 |
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| Fig. 19) Caravaggio, Bacchus, 1596-1597. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
According
to Hockney, Caravaggio marked the final transition from the concave mirror to
the lenses, with a technological shift in the multi-century use of optical tools by artists. That
transition finally enabled wide-angle effects and therefore made it possible to
widen the field of view; it took place precisely in Caravaggio's artistic
production, the first artist who made a creative use of the lenses, and can be
observed today by comparing the so-called Young
Sick Bacchus of 1593-1594 (according to Hockney, 1594) [43] with the Bacchus of 1596-1597 (according to Hockney, 1595-1596) [44]. The
former painting, in the opinion of the English artist, was treated with concave
mirrors, being the result of the combination of four images: the head, the
back, the hand with a bunch of grapes and the still life on the table, with the
first two parts (shoulder and back) much closer to the viewer, while the last
two seem more distant, "as we have
seen, the effect of using a mirror-lens and montage is to bring the subject
nearer to the picture plane" [45]). In the second painting, to the contrary,
the image of Bacchus "seems much
farther back. This is an effect you would expect from a conventional lens,
which can project a wider field of view and therefore more of the figure in one
go" [46]. He interpreted a second characteristic of the painting as a
result of using a lens: the Bacchus
of 1596-1597 was left-handed. Well, he noted that in Caravaggio's pictures
there was a high prevalence of left-handers, which can be explained by the
not-corrected effect of a problem caused by the use of the lens: the reversal
of the right with the left. A possibility to correct the defect was discovered only a few years later by Kepler (1571-1630). One can therefore think that, in
reality, the model held the cup of wine in his right hand, but he had been seen
by Caravaggio, who projected the image in a dark room, with the cup in his left
hand. Hockney concluded that, although it has been historically proven that
Caravaggio owned several mirrors, in the mid-1590s he must have got hold of a
lens, probably thanks to his protector, Cardinal Del Monte, who was also one of
the main supporters of Galilei and an expert in lenses.
As proof of
these claims, Hockney cited an article published in the journal Paragone by Roberta Lapucci in 1994 [47]:
the article explained the use of mirrors which Caravaggio made for the Young Sick Bacchus, as narrated by
Giovanni Baglione, and mentioned the use of mirrors, lenses and darkrooms in
the Lombard-Venetian world since the time of Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576), the
doctor of the Borromeo family who used it to show the image projections, and of
Daniele Barbaro (1514-1570). We will meet again Ms Lapucci as the protagonist
of the development of Hockney’s thesis in the research on Caravaggio. In 1994,
she was still a pupil of Mina Gregori and a university researcher for studies
on optics and Caravaggio [48]. Following the intuition of Lapucci, Hockney's Secret Knowledge also included long
passages of writings by Cardano, Barbaro and Giambattista della Porta
(1535-1615), all dedicated to the darkroom.
"Caravaggio’s new lenses - Hockney added – enabled him to attempt ever more complex and naturalistic images.
Below is his Supper at Emmaus from between 1596-8 and 1601. Look at the
remarkable foreshortened arms of St. Peter on the right and Christ in the
center. (...) Though we accept Caravaggio's representation as natural, if we
look closer we see some strange discrepancies. Christ’s right hand is the same
size as Peter’s, although it is supposed to be nearer to us; and Peter's right
hand seems larger than his left, which is also nearer. These may be deliberate
artistic decisions, or may be a consequence of movements of lens and canvas
when refocusing because of depth-of-field problems." [49]
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| Fig. 20) Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1601-1602 (according to Hockney, between 1596-1598 and 1601) Source: Wikimedia Commons |
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| Fig. 21) David Hockney, Supper at Emmaus, after Caravaggio, 2001. Source: http://www.believermag.com/hockney/lookingglass/part5.html |
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| Fig. 22) Giacomo Pietrapiana, Annegriet Spörndle and Giuseppe Zanoni, Supper at Emmaus, after Caravaggio, 2010. Source: http://www.giuseppezanoni.com/caravaggio-mmx-2010/ |
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| Fig. 23) Emanuela Pulvirenti, Photographic reconstruction of the Supper at Emmaus, after Caravaggio, 2010. Source: http://www.didatticarte.it/Blog/?p=2766 |
Looking for an explanation, Hockney suggested that Caravaggio had projected and painted the figures separately, adding them one after the other. The procedure would have been as follows: if the darkroom cannot be moved (as we shall see, in the case of Caravaggio the camera obscura corresponded to the room in which he lived, and was therefore a real chamber), it was still possible to move the canvas on which one painted. Therefore, the reason for which the figures did not meet the full parameters of perspective is that were observed separately and then assembled directly on the canvas.
How was it
possible to combine the shapes of the models on the canvas, reproducing them
one after the other without preparatory drawings, and thus portraying them
live? It was indeed feasible, by briefly sketching the position that the models
had to assume, through incisions he recorded directly onto the canvas, probably
with the tip of the brush handles. The traces of the incisions are still
visible today in almost all the paintings of Caravaggio. "These lines do not follow the forms
precisely, and they do not show enough to be compositional drawings: only the
key elements - the heads, the arms - are marked." [50] So, Caravaggio separately tracked lines
for each figure. "I believe that
Caravaggio used this technique simply to record the position of his models"
[51].
To
demonstrate that this is possible, Hockney used a camera obscura and simulated the same procedure, observing the
models separately and combining them, just to form the same composition as the Supper at Emmaus. The sketch in pencil
of his simulation with modern models was displayed by Lawrence Weschler in an
expanded version of his article on Hockney’s optical techniques, which was
published in The New Yorker and
marked the media success of Hockney's theses in the United States [52]. Since
then began a long series of experimental experiences to reconstruct the world
and the art techniques of Caravaggio (think of the photos presented by the
photographer Giuseppe Zanoni, together with the German journalist Annegriet
Camilla Spoerndle and the architect Giacomo Pietrapiana at the exhibition Caravaggio MMX, on the occasion of the
four hundred years after the death of the artist, or of the Photoshop reconstructions
by Emanuela Pulvirenti with her students or, last but not least, of the tableaux vivants after Caravaggio
presented every year at the Museo
Diocesano in Naples). In a speech at the Bowling Green State University,
Roberta Lapucci in fact noted that these modern ‘plays’ also reproduce some
real effects: the use of optical techniques and the naturalism of Caravaggio
were astounding for contemporaries, who could recognize relatives, friends or
acquaintances in the new paintings just exposed [53].
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| Fig. 24) Caravaggio, Cardsharps, 1594. Sources: Wikimedia Commons |
This
collage technique of composition, through which he was sequentially adding
projected images on canvas, allowed Caravaggio to use the same model in two
different positions. “The Cardsharps is a good example. The figures are more or
less life size and the same model appears to have been used both for the cheat
and for the ‘gull’. That alone suggests the painting is a sort of collage. If
you project an image of a sitter full size, you are using the lens like you use
a camera lens to take a close-up. The effect is a very shallow depth of focus:
only the subject itself is sharp, or sometimes only part of the subject.
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| Fig. 25) Caravaggio, Cardsharps, 1594, detail |
To see everything in focus, the subject has to
be projected smaller, by placing it further away from the lens, or you have to
refocus on the various elements. As the camera is
room sized and cannot be turned towards each item in turn, the only option is
to place each element into the position in front of the lens where it will be
in focus, and to move the canvas on the easel to put the projected image into
the right place for the composition. That is the essence of the method: each
figure, every prop, even an outstretched hand, is presented to the camera in
turn. Each one is in the same position before the camera. The reason Caravaggio’s paintings have no
space is that everything in them was in precisely the same place” [54].
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| Fig. 26) Caravaggio, Cardsharps, 1594, detail |
In search
of the method of work of Caravaggio, the English painter finally asked himself
how he organized the lights. No artificial light could be strong enough to
produce the effects displayed in his paintings: obviously, it was the sunlight
to be used to shed light with the necessary intensity on those figures whose
image was projected by the lens onto the canvas. And yet it was impossible to
recreate those scenes outdoor. It then became necessary to use closed and dark
spaces, lit by sunlight that was directed on the figures through external
openings, in the same way of modern scene spotlight. Moreover, as also Hockney
recalled, Prudenzia Bruni, the owner of Caravaggio's house, notoriously took
him to court for a non-authorised hole he had made in the ceiling. The scene of
the Calling of St Matthew (1599-1600;
according to Hockney 1599-1602) seems to be that of a film set, with a side
light that intentionally does not come from the front of the window on the
wall, so as not to affect the correct operation of the darkroom: ”It is clear that the window on the back wall
is not a source of light. It has been painted out, to avoid the problems of
‘contre-jour’- against the day, or against the light – difficulties that are
familiar to any modern cameraman.” [55]
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| Fig. 27) Caravaggio, The Calling of St Matthew, 1599-1600, according to Hockney 1599-1602. Sources: Wikimedia Commons |
Optics as key to the technique of Caravaggio
As
anticipated, Roberta Lapucci (www.robertalapucci.com), who now directs the SACI in
Florence, studied optics as an essential element of Caravaggio's technique, all
along her career. Ms Lapucci is heir to a line of studies on the application of
optical instruments in art in the Lombard-Venetian world at the time of
Caravaggio. After the intuition of Longhi in 1952, that stream of research has
seen to date studies by among others Carlo Ragghianti, Luigi Spezzaferro and
Mina Gregori [56]. Her research combined the investigation of the optical
know-how at Caravaggio's time, the study of the different techniques used by
the painter to project images using increasingly refined mirrors and lenses,
and most late the analysis of the chemical substances used by him (with a
process which substantially anticipated photography by two centuries) to
imprint the image on canvas. The result was a series of publications, many of
which were released in English, with the obvious intention to participate in
the international debate on Caravaggio which began with the controversy about
the Hockney-Falco thesis. The bilingual volume "Caravaggio e l’ottica/Caravaggio and optics" in 2005 [57],
with the significant subtitle "Why
we must be able to see and observe", was followed by the short Italian
essay “Caravaggio e I'ottica:
aggiornamenti e riflessioni " (Caravaggio and optics: updates and
reflections), presented the year next to the congress "Caravaggio e l’Europa” (Caravaggio and
Europe) and published in 2009 [58].
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| Fig. 28) Roberta Lapucci, Caravaggio e l’ottica/Caravaggio and optics, 2005 |
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| Fig. 29) Susan Grundy and Roberta Lapucci, Caravaggio e la scienza della luce/Caravaggio and the science of lights, 2010 |
In 2008
Lapucci contributed with a report on "Caravaggio
and the Alchemy of Painting" [59] at the Florence Congress entitled
"Painted Optics Symposium.
Re-examining the Hockney-Falco thesis 7 years on". Along with
Emanuela Massa and Anna Mazzinghi, she co-authored the publication of Nuove Scoperte Sul Caravaggio (New
Discoveries on Caravaggio) in 2009, an initiative sponsored by the Italian National Committee for the celebration of
the fourth centenary of the death of Caravaggio and the Roberto Longhi Foundation for Art History
Studies [60] The same year was published the essay on The technical legacy of Caravaggio in Naples, Sicily and Malta [61]. Finally, one year later, in 2010, Roberta Lapucci and the South African scholar
Susan Grundy [62] published the bilingual Caravaggio
e la scienza della luce/Caravaggio and the Science of Light [63]. It has
been the last publication to date by Lapucci on Caravaggio’s optics. As
mentioned, a new volume, entitled Caravaggio
photographer, was announced, but has not yet been released. And yet it
seems that this line of study is well established in Italy, as demonstrated by
the Roman exhibition La bottega del genio
(The workshop of the genius) [64],
on the occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Michelangelo
Merisi, exhibition dedicated to the use of lenses, mirrors and the camera obscura in the art of Caravaggio.
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| Fig. 30) The exhibition Caravaggio. The workshop of the genius at the Palazzo Venezia, Rome |
As a result
of this work, we can now speak of an "Italian-English theory" about
Caravaggio’s optics. Hockney deserved the merit of having revived the terms of
a debate which, although introduced by Longhi in 1952, would have otherwise
remained hidden in the meanders of the history of art criticism. Basically,
before Hockney the interest for the use of optics in art had remained confined to niche
specialists. Moreover, the debate between supporters and opponents of his
thesis has allowed making strides in knowledge in the last years. Lapucci
wrote: “David Hockney deserves great
credit for his 2001 publication Secret Knowledge and for the subsequent debate on the Internet amongst artists and
scientists, like Charles Falco and Michael J. Gorman, on the possible use of camera
obscura by painters.” [65] His
fundamental insights were all confirmed: Caravaggio made active use of the camera obscura; many of his paintings
were made and assembled through the use of lenses; Caravaggio's stylistic
developments were to be explained by the improvement of optical instruments at
its disposal. Her research went even beyond Hockney, when Ms Lapucci
referred, in announced but not yet published studies, to the chemical
properties of the substances used by Caravaggio to prepare the surface of the
canvases: they might have enable him to print directly the images, which were
projected by the lenses, and luminescent colours that should allow him to paint
in the dark.
Caravaggio and his time
Ms Lapucci
made clear that it is critical to internalize that Caravaggio was active in the
age of the refinement of optics. His painting was contemporary to the
improvement of the lenses and to numerous discoveries, such as that of the
telescope by Galileo in 1609 (a year before his death). The relationship
between art and science was very close in those years, as already evidenced in
this blog by the review of the correspondence between Ludovico Cigoli and Galileo (1609-1613). Another lesser-known example is the painting Flight into Egypt by Adam Elsheimer, a
German painter living in Rome at Caravaggio’s time. In 1609 he painted a very
detailed description of the night sky, with spots on the moon, planets and
constellations (included the Milky Way, depicted in a way that is not visible
to the naked eye). According to Andreas Thielemann, the German painter could
have only have observed all of this with the just invented telescope,
confirming the relationship between artists and scientists in those years [66].
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| Fig. 31) Adam Elsheimer, Flight to Egypt, 1609. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
Wherever he
was, Caravaggio joined and was surrounded by optics scholars: he was really at
the centre of a network of contacts between scientists and artists, between
Milan, Rome, Naples and Sicily. “The
crossed paths between Caravaggio and the scientists were many; they were all friends or correspondents of Galileo.
Already in Milan, in [Simone] Peterzano’s workshop he often met Gian Paolo Lomazzo the theorist of light, in contact with Cardano and Benedetti and
Ottonario, Piemontese mathematicians, friends of Galileo and Guidubaldo Del
Monte” [67]. It is worth adding that
the Six books of Perspective by
Guidubaldo Del Monte offered Galileo the intuition that the study of the solar
and the lunar spots would provide him the possibility to prove that the earth
revolves around the Earth and not vice versa. The two scientists were in
constant contact. “In Rome under the
patronage of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, Caravaggio was connected to
Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Galileo and Tommaso Campanella; Francesco Maria, in
his alchemic cabinet, produced mirrors and glass. Here he probably met his
brother Guidubaldo. In the Urbe,
Caravaggio also sold paintings to Vincenzo Giustiniani (friend of Del Monte and
collector of mirrors) and to a "specchiaro” (mirror maker) who lives at
Magine di Ponte. (…) He also attended the house of Monsignor Paolo Gualdo,
friend of the poet Marzio Milesi, and of Galileo, interested in science and
suspected of heresy in 1611.” [68] And these interests did not disappear
when he had to escape from Rome, after the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni. In fact “when he moved to Naples he met Giovan
Battista Manso, Marchese di Villa, another friend of Della Porta, as Colantonio
Stigliola, scientist of physical forces, the most Galilean of all the Neapolitan
scientists, as was also Paolo Beni (defender of Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius).
Most people in this group joined the Academy of the 'svegliati' ('Awakened')
including Tommaso Campanella. Also in Sicily his friends, such as Vincenzo
Mirabella, were Galilean; this noble man from Syracuse, poet and scientist, was
preparing a telescope and asked Galileo to send him "two crystals for the
telescope” [69].
If at times
he came in contacts with eminent scientists, in other cases Caravaggio met
enthusiasts for optics who were active in parallel circuits to the official
academic circles. Not surprisingly, this was a passion that often could not
become too explicit. We are in the era in which the Inquisition condemned to
death free thinkers like Giordano Bruno (1600); a few decades after, the Holy Office
would force Galileo Galilei to recant (1633). In those years, the use of lenses
to project images was perceived as being something 'magical', and was therefore
suspicious for the church. So scholars in optics were tending to hide what they
knew on the projection of images.
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| Fig. 32) Caravaggio, Marta and Mary Magdalene, 1599. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
On the
circles attended by Caravaggio, Ms Lapucci wrote: “There was an underworld of 'hidden scientists', active in a field
opposed by the Church, that of lenses, accused of cheating because ‘disturbing
the images during their difficult path, towards the eye, they alter any
information of the external world.’ In the past University Professors
maintained an absolute opposition towards those 'small glossy glass disks'
which, on the contrary were used with great satisfaction. However, as this
topic was close to heresy, it was rejected and employed only in fields
considered less important, such as the collection of scientific specimens, dream
interpretation, magic and theatre scenography.” [70] An important
personality was the author of the treatise Magia
Naturalis, the scholar Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615), who, according
to Ms Lapucci, described procedures with very similar lenses and mirrors to
those used by Caravaggio. Their combination allowed to correct one of the flaws
in image projection, which were no longer inverted upside down, even if the
other flaw (the inversion between left and right) was still not resolved. We
were therefore at an intermediate stage of technology.
Let us go
back to Della Porta and Caravaggio: “The
two could have met in Lombard-Venetian circles, before the painter moved to
Rome, or later, either through Del Monte, or through Giambattista Marino, who
was at home at the Crescenzi family; moreover, it must also be considered that
the technology proposed by Della Porta allowed to correct the picture
upside-down, but not left-right. Therefore, since Caravaggio did not use
preparatory drawing (did he perhaps paint the projected images at the same time
when he saw them for the first time?), while he repeated twice the same models
in different poses on the same canvas (did he perform multiple projections?),
and also used too many "left-handed "models (could he not reverse
left-right?), everything seems to confirm my hypothesis.” [71]
The use of the camera obscura
All seems
to confirm that Caravaggio was technologically smart. Ms Lapucci also noticed
that the limitations of available technologies became, at that same time, the
source of the most typical aesthetic effects of the painter. “The use of low quality lenses (badly
polished and forged) resulted in an increase in the contrasts (stronger
chiaroscuro shading), distortion or aberration in the anatomical foreshortening”
[72]. Hockney’s apparently eccentric observation, whereby the increasing use of
the contrast between light and shadow was a consequence of the techniques used,
even more than a simple reflection of the artist’s taste and of the
iconological conceptions of that era, was therefore strengthened.
The old
sources on Caravaggio further confirmed the use of similar techniques. And here
Ms Lapucci quoted two passages by Giulio Mancini (1558-1630) and Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1613-1696), noting that they apparently described, although
summarily, the workshop/camera obscura
of the painter: “A uniform light coming
from above without reflections , as it could be in a room from a window with
the walls painted in black; thus having the pale and the dark colours very pale
and very dark, this gives relief to the painting but in a way not natural, not
even previously done or thought by any other century or any other ancient
artist” [73] or
again: “He went on so much in his way of painting, that he never went out in
the sunlight, [with] any of his figures, but he found a way to execute them in
the dark air of a closed room, using a light from above which came down
straight on the principal part of the body, leaving the rest in the shadow in
order to confer power with a strong pale and dark, contrast" [74].
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| Fig. 33) Caravaggio, Boy Bitten by a Lizard, 1593-1594. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
The
Florentine scholar observed: "While
Caravaggio was painting, sunlight did not remained fixed, but continuously
moved during the day, resulting in the need of refocusing, as David G. Stork [editor's note: one
of the protagonists of controversy with Hockney] has called the operation to re-focus the entire complex. In fact, about
every hour lighting conditions were changing in the room and then the artist
had to reposition either the lens or the mirror. Often this change of location
of the equipment and the model caused, consequently, a dimensional change of
the area subject to a new projection, as is clearly visible for example in the
face of the Boy Bitten by a Lizard.
In fact, the right side of his face is bigger, longer and darker while the left
side is smaller and brighter, and slightly rotated toward the viewer. (...)
It is probable that, in order to avoid
the refocusing, as also Hockney suggested, Caravaggio sometimes projected separately
distinct portions of reality and then recomposed then together, in a kind of
patchwork." [75]
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| Fig. 34) Susan Grundy and Roberta Lapucci after Caravaggio, Boy Bitten by a Lizard, (virtual elaboration in Corel), Source: http://robertalapucci.com/pdf/2006b.pdf |
The improvement of optical techniques
Roberta
Lapucci also confirmed Hockney’s intuition on the sources of the iconographic
changes in the work of Caravaggio: they would be in line with the development
of the techniques used by the painter. She interpreted this development as a
result of the improvement of his technical knowhow, as he was developing his
relations with scientists and scholars of optics; as a function of the
enhancements of the lenses of which he was coming into possession; and finally
of the availability of larger spaces in the premises in which he organized his
darkrooms. The latter factor was not at all secondary. “At the beginning when he was on his own in Rome he did small sized
portraits, very bi-dimensional; later on, in the Del Monte laboratory (maybe in
the observatory tower with the moon phases recently discovered by Paolo Sapori
and his colleagues) he moved to a larger size, with multiple figures and
expressed more perspective depth; then at the brothers' Mattei house, he can
finally compose with much more space around, as can be seen in the Odescalchi
conversion [Conversion of Saint Paul], which seems to be executed in a
transitional moment between Del Monte and Mattei” [76].
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| Fig. 35) Caravaggio, The Conversion of Saint Paul (Conversion Odescalchi), 1600-1601. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
It is only
when the availability of space became sufficient, that Caravaggio could create
the necessary combinations of lights, mirrors and lenses. For example, if his
favourite models (Mario Minniti and Phyllis Levasti) were represented as
figures using the right hand in the directly preceding years, they appeared in
his painting as predominantly left-handed after Caravaggio was hosted by
Cardinal Del Monte, which means that the premises where Caravaggio painted had
become large enough to be able to use optical instruments (whose use - as
mentioned - however, implied the inversion between left and right) [77].
 |
| Fig. 36) Caravaggio, The Musicians, 1595. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
“Another interesting optical aspect is that
of depth of field. In Caravaggio's early artworks we notice a strong
compression of space; the main personages are squeezed against the front plane
in a stage set which has very little depth (10-50 cm.) like in The
Musicians. Later on (the first artwork
where we notice it is the Supper at Emmaus at the National Gallery) the space of the stage is much wider (circa 2
meters from the left to the right hand of the pilgrim). (…) The artist now can
rely on a combination of lenses and mirrors which allows him to have more depth
of field (which is inversely proportional to the focal distance; the shorter
the focal distance, the wider the depth of field; therefore you must set the
object further away from the lens). In other words a larger room was now available to the artist” [78].
 |
| Fig. 37) Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1601-1602, detail |
Regardless
of the more performant means available to him, Caravaggio continued the
technique of combining on the canvas separately projected images, as rightly
detected by Hockney on the basis of the Supper
at Emmaus and confirmed by Lapucci: “On
the table of the same Supper at Emmaus
each object casts a shadow that has a different direction in respect to the
others; which means that each object has been executed (or rather, projected)
separately from the others, in a different light condition (at different hours
of the day). The chicken has a shadow which shows that the sun is almost in a
perpendicular direction (lunch time), slightly on the right in respect to the
viewer; the wine carafe has been executed later in the afternoon when the sun
is in a low position (an elongated shadow on the table cloth); the basket of
fruit casts an unreal shadow and the eye level is parallel to the basket, while
for the other objects they are seen from above” [79].
 |
| Fig. 38) Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1601-1602, detail |
Optics and kinematics
In his last
years Caravaggio painted differently. In fact, the later works of the painter,
according to Roberta Lapucci, seemed to reveal a new use of projection techniques,
which responded to a different balance between logistic constraints and
artistic effects.
 |
| Fig. 39) Caravaggio, The Raising of Lazarus, 1609 and The Calling of St Matthew, from 1599 to 1600 - Details |
On the one
hand, Caravaggio lived a less stable life, was a fugitive and a clandestine and
had probably much less time at his disposal to achieve his paintings (on
purpose, he used much more rapidly drying, but also much more perishable
materials). Moreover, when composing the figures in his paintings, he often
relied on silhouettes of figures, on a full size dimension, which he had drawn
on wax paper and he was probably bringing with himself. In the aforementioned
book "The technical legacy of
Caravaggio in Naples, Sicily and Malta", Ms Lapucci explained that
"between 1607 and 1609 perhaps
Merisi had no choice: he preferred materials that tent to dry out quickly,
stopped copying the natural and his figures were often derived from existing
models used in other occasions. Large surfaces, highly textured canvases
derived from the combination of more pieces, and empty spaces, in which the
scene was almost always shrouded by darkness, accentuated the sense of
isolation and loneliness that probably haunted his mind (...) In these years,
Merisi made extensive use of the mummy, the pigment produced by the combustion of animal flesh, mixed with
resins, and used by the fossori (skilled
workers in the burial) in some phases of the conservation of corpses. The oral tradition has handed down to us
that the island artists (in Malta and Sicily) went to grave-diggers to buy
their own materials, without disdaining tasks who saw them engaged to decorate
the tombs themselves. Caravaggio was no exception. Rather. It is an accredited
hypothesis that he used these places as atelier: the underground shelters of
the Christian past had similar characteristics to the optical chamber and were
therefore suitable to discharge its pictorial needs. The darkness of the
tuffaceous caves recreated that
atmosphere which was indispensable to him: in fact, a light filtering from
skylights directly and in a punctiform way allowed to Michelangelo Merisi to
stage compositions by strong chiaroscuro pathos and to apply the knowledge
learned in terms of optics." [80]
As evidence
of the techniques used by the painter, in order to save time, Roberta Lapucci
showed as example the (inverted) identity of the profiles of Christ in the Resurrection of Lazarus,
1609 (Malta) and the Calling of St
Matthew ten years before (Rome), as well as the profile of the portrait of
Alof de Wignacourt of 1608 and the jailer in the Beheading of St John the Baptist of the same year (both in Malta).
 |
| Fig. 40) Caravaggio, Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt (1608 ), and The Beheading of St John the Baptist (1608 ) - details |
On the
other hand grew the ambition of the artist to represent scenes with special
visual effects, and represent thereby a kinematic result of action. In the
aforementioned Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, for instance, the play of
light meant that, over the course of the day, the sun was illuminating
different shapes, thereby moving the focus of the action from one of the
figures to the other, according to the time when the faithful entered the
church. Caravaggio here – Ms. Lapucci noted – put into practice the teaching
of Lomazzo on different light sources.
 |
| Fig. 41) Caravaggio, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 1608. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
 |
| Fig. 42) Caravaggio, Beheading of St. John the Baptist, 1608, with evidence of the light profiles by Roberta Lapucci (source: http://www.cultorweb.com/ottica2/Caravaggio.html e http://robertalapucci.com/pdf/2009b.pdf) |
But the
sense of action was also transmitted to individual elements of the picture. Ms
Lapucci noted “double or triple luminous
outline contours… intentional effects that the artist wanted, aimed at
rendering the idea of a rotational dynamic movement through the two or three contour lines, for some faces or arms” [81].
The painter
painted on the spot without preparatory drawings, and thus many of the
situations in which the movements of the limbs seemed too abrupt with respect
to the position of the body, or the use of shadows and light was not
consistently related to the composition of the painting have often been
interpreted by critics as 'pentimenti',
i.e. as corrections made to an original desire (think, ultimately, to the
aforementioned studies on the pentimenti
by Marco Cardinali and Maria Beatrice De Ruggeri). According to Ms Lapucci,
instead, these were entirely intentional special effects “mainly concerning flesh areas, and produced by added secondary sources.
They are not of the environmental light (…) These contours concern anatomical
portions of the figures (hands, arms, faces) in the moment of making a violent
dynamic gesture, which, all the sudden, is immediately blocked as to suggest an
arrested violence” [82]. To this end, according to Ms Lapucci, Caravaggio
projected multiple images of the same figure on the canvas, with the effects of
irregular and double contours, as he wants to give an impression of movement to
the image. Among the many cases cited by Lapucci, she refered to two Flagellations of Christ. The modern
equivalent would be the Dynamism of a dog
on a leash by Giacomo Balla, 1912.
 |
| Fig. 43) Caravaggio, The Flagellation of Christ, 1608-1609, detail |
 |
| Fig. 44) Caravaggio, The Flagellation of Christ, 1606-1607, detail |
Finally, often Caravaggio moved the lenses in such a way as to combine images in focus with out of focus images, attempting to achieve "an intentional effect of "In Focus/Out of Focus" to suggest the front or back planes (see this In Focus/Out of Focus effect in the hands of The Crowning with Thorns 1607 and in the Portrait of Antonio Martelli between 1608 and 1609)" [83]. Caravaggio wanted here to give an impression of depth through means other than linear perspective. It was the same blurring effect that all great photographers have practiced with photo lenses (think of the portrait that Henri Cartier-Bresson made of Albert Camus). And here is to remember what the correspondent Sarah Boxer wrote in the New York Times on December 4, 2001, relating to the New York conference and the theses of Hockney and Falco: John Spike, the art historian and author of the complete catalogue of the works of Caravaggio, was staring a Caravaggio in London with David Hockney, when he heard an elderly visitor muttering in French; it was Henri Cartier-Bresson, who complained that the painting by Caravaggio was too similar to a photograph [84].
 |
| Fig. 45) Caravaggio, Crowning with Thorns, 1607, detail |
 |
| Fig. 46) Caravaggio, Portrait of Antonio Martelli, 1608-1609, detail |
End of Part Two
Go to Part Three
NOTES
[35] Longhi, Roberto - Il Caravaggio, Novara, De
Agostini, 1952, 62 pages. The
full text of Longhi is: "So he came
to discover - and it was almost a scientific discovery - his personal, empirical
optical camera, which was not surprising at the time of Del Porta and by now
Galileo. His stubborn deference to the truth confirmed in him the naive belief
that it was the eye of the camera to look at him and to suggest him everything.
Many times he had to be enchanted in front of the natural magic, and what
surprised him the most was to see that the mirror did not require the human
figure, if – once the figure had went out from its field - the mirror continued
to display the sloping floor, the shadow on the wall, the tape fell to the
ground. It is not difficult to understand why he came to the conclusion to
proceed to direct mirroring the reality. This implied the tabula rasa of the
pictorial practice of the time, which (preparing the arguments in paper and
pencil and because of historical and mythological erudition and stylizing
abstraction) had drawn up a partition in classes of what can be represented.
Transposed socially, such partition could not but pay tribute to the upper
echelons. But Caravaggio was addressing the internal life and without classes,
the simple feelings and even the ordinary aspect of objects, things that are
worth, in the mirror, just like people and figures." Quoted in
Saggio, Antonino - Lo strumento di
Caravaggio (The Caravaggio’s tool, 2007) (see:
http://architettura.it/coffeebreak/20070427/).
http://architettura.it/coffeebreak/20070427/).
[36] Cardinali Marco and De Ruggeri Maria Beatrice - Attraversando la pittura di Caravaggio.
Novità e scoperte sui procedimenti e sulla tecnica del ciclo Contarelli (Through
the painting of Caravaggio. News
and discoveries on the procedures and the technique of the Contarelli cycle), see:
https://www.academia.edu/10464930/Attraversando_la_pittura_di_Caravaggio._Novit%C3%A0_e_scoperte_sui_procedimenti_e_sulla_tecnica_del_ciclo_Contarelli.
The same authors published in German a “Brief, but true story of Caravaggio's technique” (Kurze, aber wahre Geschichte der caravaggesken Technik), based on the restauration of the Caravaggio paintings at the Kunstistorisches Museum in Vienna. The text is available at:
The same authors published in German a “Brief, but true story of Caravaggio's technique” (Kurze, aber wahre Geschichte der caravaggesken Technik), based on the restauration of the Caravaggio paintings at the Kunstistorisches Museum in Vienna. The text is available at:
https://www.academia.edu/11196380/_Kurze_aber_wahre_Geschichte_der_caravaggesken_Technik. Marco Cardinali and Maria Beatrice
De Ruggeri are active at Emmebi in
Rome (http://www.emmebi-arte.it/pubblicazioni.php).
[37] See:
http://www.nationalgeographic.it/dal-giornale/2012/04/26/news/caravaggio_fotografo-970461/
http://www.nationalgeographic.it/dal-giornale/2012/04/26/news/caravaggio_fotografo-970461/
[38] See,
for instance,
[39] The
conference is documented at
[40] The
conference was held on September 7-9, 2008.
[43] Hockney
does not seem, therefore, to share the prevailing view that the Young Sick Bacchus was actually a
self-portrait of Caravaggio.
[44] It
must be said that Susan Grundy, one of the scholars who most supported the
thesis of the use of optics in Caravaggio's painting, considered however
totally erroneous the view that the transition from the Young Sick Bacchus to the Bacchus
was the moment when the mirror was replaced by a lens. See: Lapucci, Roberta -
Caravaggio e l’ottica/Caravaggio and optics, Florence, Rest and Art, 2005, 50
and xlvi pages. Quotation at page 14. The same point was repeated by Ms Grundy
at the New York Convention of 2001.
See: http://hockney-optics.brandeis.edu/hypothesis/caravaggio/hockney.php.
See: http://hockney-optics.brandeis.edu/hypothesis/caravaggio/hockney.php.
[45] Hockney,
David – Secret Knowledge. Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters,
New York, Viking Studio, 2006, 328 pages. Quotation at page 114.
[46] Hockney, David – Secret Knowledge. (2006) … (quotation),
p. 114.
[47] Lapucci, Roberta - “Caravaggio e i quadretti nello
specchio ritratti”, in “Paragone-Arte”, XLV, nn. 44-46, pp. 160-170. An English
translation of the article (Caravaggio and the ‘quadretti nello specchio
ritratti’) was published in: Lapucci, Roberta - Caravaggio e l’ottica/Caravaggio and optics, Firenze, Rest and Art, 2005 (pages xi-xx).
[48] A
few years before, Ms Lapucci had completed a PhD on the methods and materials
of Caravaggio's techniques, made between 1986 and 1989 under the supervision of
Mina Gregori, Corrado Maltese and Maurizio Calvesi. In the preface to
"Caravaggio and optics" Mina Gregori wrote: "For the show I
presented in 1991 in the Sala Bianca at the Pitti Palace ... I asked for the
collaboration of Roberta Lapucci, who came from a family of scientists, and who
seemed to me in the course of her studies to be especially interested in
technical research and technology. (...) I entrusted to her the section of the
catalogue that referred to the executive aspects of Caravaggio's paintings and
the technical cards on his artworks, that represent above all a basis of
departure for any future research in the field." Lapucci, Roberta,
Caravaggio and optical / Caravaggio and optics, (quoted), page v.
[49] Hockney,
David – Secret Knowledge. (2006) … (quoted), p. 120.
[50] Hockney,
David – Secret Knowledge. (2006) … (quoted), p. 123.
[51] Hockney,
David – Secret Knowledge. (2006) … (quoted), p. 123.
[54] Hockney,
David – Secret Knowledge. (2006) … (quoted), p. 226.
[55] Hockney,
David – Secret Knowledge. (2006) … (quoted), p. 124.
[56] As
to relevant Italian criticism
tradition, Ms Lapucci quoted the following works: Ronchi, Vasco - Storia della tecnica ottica (History of
the optical technique), Giunti, Florence, 1970, 264 pages; Ragghianti, Carlo - Tra Leonardo e Caravaggio. Nuove indagini di linguaggio formale:
specchi, illuminazioní, camere ottiche (Between Leonardo and Caravaggio.
New surveys of formal language: mirrors, lighting, optical chambers),
Laboratorio di studi sulla forma, Università Internazionale dell’arte,
1973-1974; Spezzaferro, Luigi - La
cultura del Cardinal del Monte e il primo tempo del Caravaggio (The culture
of Cardinal del Monte and the first time of Caravaggio), in: Storia delI'arte (History of art), IIl,
9-10, January-1971, pp. 57-92; Parronchi, Alessandro - La ‘camera ombrosa’ del Caravaggio (The 'shady room' by
Caravaggio), in Michelangelo, V, 1976, 18, pp. 33-47; Gregori, Mina - Giovanni Battista Moroni, Bergamo,
Bolis, 1979, 352 pages.
[57] Lapucci Roberta -
Caravaggio e l’ottica/Caravaggio
and optics, Firenze, Rest and Art, 2005, 50 and xlvi pages.
[58] Lapucci Roberta – Caravaggio e I'ottica: aggiornamenti e riflessioni (Caravaggio and
Optics: updates and reflections) in: Caravaggio
e l’Europa, L'artista, la storia, la tecnica e la sua eredità (Caravaggio
and Europe, the artist, the history, the technique, and his legacy), edited by
Luigi Spezzaferro, Biblioteca d’arte, Milano, Silvana Publishers, 336 pages. Available in internet: http://robertalapucci.com/pdf/2006b.pdf.
[59] Lapucci
Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, in: Painted Optics Symposium.
Re-examining the Hockney-Falco thesis 7 years on, Fondazione Giorgio Ronchi and
Studio Art Centers International (SACI), Florence, 7-9 Settembre 2008. Available
in internet:
http://robertalapucci.com/pdf/2009b.pdf.
http://robertalapucci.com/pdf/2009b.pdf.
[60] Lapucci, Roberta; Massa, Emanuela; Mazzinghi, Anna
- Nuove scoperte sul Caravaggio (New
findings on Caravaggio), 2010, Servizi Editoriali, Firenze, 20 pages.
[61] Lapucci, Roberta - L' eredità tecnica del Caravaggio a Napoli, in Sicilia, a Malta.
Spigolature sul caravaggismo meridionale (The technical legacy of
Caravaggio in Naples, Sicily, Malta. Notes on the southern Caravaggism), Saonara (Padova), Il Prato
Publishers, 2009, 176 pages.
[62] The
master thesis of Susan Grundy on the use of optical instruments by Artemisia
Gentileschi is available on the internet:
[63] Grundy, Susan and Lapucci, Roberta - Caravaggio e
la scienza della luce/Caravaggio and the Science of Light, Saonara (Padova), Il
Prato Publishers, 2010, 192 pages.
[64] Caravaggio. La
Bottega del Genio (The Workshop of the Genius). Roma, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, December 22, 2010
/ May 29, 2011. The director
Paolo Benvenuti had announced in 2013 the intention to make a film titled
"Il segreto di Caravaggio” (The
Secret of Caravaggio), dedicated to Caravaggio as scientist and the use of
optical instruments. See: http://ilmanifesto.info/i-segreti-di-caravaggio-in-sicilia/. The film has, however, never been
produced, probably for financial reasons.
[65]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 37.
[66] Thielemann, Andreas - Lenti e specchi nella scienza e nella pittura del primo Seicento (Lenses
and mirrors in science and painting of the early seventeenth century), in: Sinisgalli,
Rocco, L’arte della matematica nella prospettiva
(The art of mathematical perspective), Istituto svizzero di Roma, Centro
internazionale di studi Urbino e la prospettiva, Roma-Urbino, October 8-11,
2006, Cartei e Bianchi.
[67]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 44.
[68]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 44.
[69]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p.45.
[70]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 38.
[71] Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio e I'ottica:
aggiornamenti e riflessioni, (quoted), p. 61.
[72]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 41.
[73] Mancini, Giulio - Considerazioni sulla pittura (Considerations on painting) Roma, Accademia
nazionale dei Lincei, Volume 1: Considerazioni
sulla pittura; Viaggio per Roma; Appendici (Considerations on painting;
Travel to Rome; Appendices) / Critical edition and introduction by Adriana
Marucchi; presentation by Lionello Venturi, 1956, pages XXXVII, 298. Quotation at page 108. English
translation included in: Caravaggio e
l’ottica/Caravaggio and optics (quoted), p. xxvii.
[74] Bellori,
Giovanni Pietro - Le Vite de' Pittori, Scultori et Architetti moderni (The
Lives of Modern Painters, Sculptors et Architects), edited by Evelina Borea,
Torino, Giulio Einaudi Publishers, 1976, cxxiv, 743 pages. Quotation at page
217. English translation included in: Caravaggio
e l’ottica/Caravaggio and optics (quoted), p. xxviii.
[75] Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio e I'ottica:
aggiornamenti e riflessioni, (quoted), p. 62.
[76]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 49.
[77]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 41,
[78]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 48,
[79]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 48.
[80] See:
[81] Lapucci, Roberta - Caravaggio e
l’ottica/Caravaggio and optics (quoted), p. xxix.
[82] Lapucci, Roberta - Caravaggio e
l’ottica/Caravaggio and optics (quoted), p. 37.
[83]
Lapucci, Roberta – Caravaggio and the Alchemy of Painting, (quoted), p. 49.
[84]
See:
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