By STEPH YIN JULY 13, 2016
(New York Times)
At age 18, Francis O’Neill, an aspiring young painter, went on a train trip around Europe and was struck by the Rembrandt masterpieces he saw in galleries. Like many before him, he was astounded by Rembrandt’s technical accuracy. “I thought, ‘What sort of magic has this guy imbued in himself?’ ” said Mr. O’Neill, who today produces art and teaches from his studio in Oxford, England. Now, Mr. O’Neill thinks he’s found an answer to that question — and he says it has more to do with optics than magic. In a paper published Wednesday in the Journal of Optics, Mr. O’Neill lays out a theory that Rembrandt set up flat and concave mirrors to project his subjects — including himself — onto surfaces before painting or etching them. By tracing these projections, the 17th century painter would have been able to achieve a higher degree of precision, Mr. O’Neill said. His research suggests that some of Rembrandt’s most prominent work may not have been done purely freehand, as many art historians believe.
He is not the first to suggest that old master painters used optics for their famous portraits. In 2001, David Hockney, a renowned British painter, and Charles Falco, an optical sciences professor at the University of Arizona, published a book in which they argued that master painters secretly used mirrors and lenses to create hyperrealistic paintings, starting in the Renaissance. Their theory, known as the HockneyFalco thesis, generated controversy among scientists and art historians, some of whom took the findings as an implication that old master painters had “cheated” to produce their works. One of the theory’s most outspoken critics was David G. Stork, an optics expert who claimed to find discrepancies in the painting analyses done by Mr. Hockney and Dr. Falco. In turn, Dr. Falco accused Dr. Stork of fabricating data.
After learning of the HockneyFalco thesis, Mr. O’Neill spent a decade studying Rembrandt’s work, which he believed displayed many features consistent with the use of optics, such as higher resolution in the center and blurriness along the edges. Mr. O’Neill started tinkering with mirrors to find the best ways to achieve projections. He found that arranging mirrors in a zigzag projected an inverted image that he could then trace onto a metal plate or canvas. For the projection to work, one of the mirrors had to be concave, or curved inward, to concentrate light onto one point. In his paper, which he wrote with Sofia Palazzo Corner, an independent researcher in London, Mr. O’Neill presents recurring themes in Rembrandt’s work that point to the Dutch artist’s use of mirrors, particularly in self portraits. Among these themes is Rembrandt’s use of chiaroscuro, a contrast of light and dark, which is a signature of the lighting conditions necessary for projections. “You’re bouncing light in a zigzag, so it goes from your face to the flat mirror, to the curved mirror and then to the surface you’re working on,” Mr. O’Neill said. “For the face to be brightly illuminated, the rest of the room has to be dark — similar to if you’re watching something on an overhead projector.” Another piece of evidence he points to is Rembrandt’s offcenter gaze in many selfportraits. This suggests that Rembrandt might have been looking at a projection surface slightly off to the side, rather than straight onto a flat mirror, Mr. O’Neill said. He believes such a setup also would have made it easier for Rembrandt to create animated selfportraits, including one called “Rembrandt Laughing,” painted around 1628. If Rembrandt were not using a projection, he would have had to hold a laughing expression while looking back and forth between his canvas and a mirror, “the physical discipline of which seems quite extreme,” Mr. O’Neill said. With a projection, however, Rembrandt could have just traced himself without having to move his eyes.
Dr. Falco praised Mr. O’Neill’s new evidence. But the new study did not convince the critic of his and Mr. Hockney’s work, Dr. Stork, who countered that the image produced by two mirrors would appear upside down on the projection surface. “If the artist is painting over it with downward strokes, then when you take the painting and turn it right side up, all those brushstrokes would go upward,” he said. “But in every Rembrandt, not a single brushstroke goes in that direction.” There is no historical documentation that Rembrandt ever used optics, he added. “Rembrandt had lots of people in and out of his studio, and not one of them mentioned a projector in a note to a friend or wife? That seems unlikely,” Dr. Stork said. Mr. O’Neill, however, believes that the use of optics was common enough during Rembrandt’s time that the presence of mirrors in an art studio would not necessarily stand out. Furthermore, he said, it’s possible that Rembrandt used optics to get the proportions and placement of details right, and then finished his paintings freehand — which would explain the lack of upward brushstrokes. Even with the use of optics, Rembrandt was deserving of the title “old master,” Mr. O’Neill said. “People have accused me of being jealous, or trying to discredit Rembrandt, but that’s not at all what I’m trying to do,” he said. “If you gave a projection to someone on the street and told them to make a masterpiece, they would never give you a Rembrandt.” Far from trying to undermine artists like Rembrandt, Mr. O’Neill said, he is interested in how the use of optics “makes us look at artists as scientists.” At the same time scientists had just started using lenses to look at things invisibly small through microscopes and at the stars through telescopes, artists were using lenses to study the world around them, he said. As for whether he has successfully painted a selfportrait using his optical setup, Mr. O’Neill said he’s sure that day will come. “Someone will say, ‘prove it,’ and then I’ll show them how it’s done,” he said.
(New York Times)
At age 18, Francis O’Neill, an aspiring young painter, went on a train trip around Europe and was struck by the Rembrandt masterpieces he saw in galleries. Like many before him, he was astounded by Rembrandt’s technical accuracy. “I thought, ‘What sort of magic has this guy imbued in himself?’ ” said Mr. O’Neill, who today produces art and teaches from his studio in Oxford, England. Now, Mr. O’Neill thinks he’s found an answer to that question — and he says it has more to do with optics than magic. In a paper published Wednesday in the Journal of Optics, Mr. O’Neill lays out a theory that Rembrandt set up flat and concave mirrors to project his subjects — including himself — onto surfaces before painting or etching them. By tracing these projections, the 17th century painter would have been able to achieve a higher degree of precision, Mr. O’Neill said. His research suggests that some of Rembrandt’s most prominent work may not have been done purely freehand, as many art historians believe.
He is not the first to suggest that old master painters used optics for their famous portraits. In 2001, David Hockney, a renowned British painter, and Charles Falco, an optical sciences professor at the University of Arizona, published a book in which they argued that master painters secretly used mirrors and lenses to create hyperrealistic paintings, starting in the Renaissance. Their theory, known as the HockneyFalco thesis, generated controversy among scientists and art historians, some of whom took the findings as an implication that old master painters had “cheated” to produce their works. One of the theory’s most outspoken critics was David G. Stork, an optics expert who claimed to find discrepancies in the painting analyses done by Mr. Hockney and Dr. Falco. In turn, Dr. Falco accused Dr. Stork of fabricating data.
After learning of the HockneyFalco thesis, Mr. O’Neill spent a decade studying Rembrandt’s work, which he believed displayed many features consistent with the use of optics, such as higher resolution in the center and blurriness along the edges. Mr. O’Neill started tinkering with mirrors to find the best ways to achieve projections. He found that arranging mirrors in a zigzag projected an inverted image that he could then trace onto a metal plate or canvas. For the projection to work, one of the mirrors had to be concave, or curved inward, to concentrate light onto one point. In his paper, which he wrote with Sofia Palazzo Corner, an independent researcher in London, Mr. O’Neill presents recurring themes in Rembrandt’s work that point to the Dutch artist’s use of mirrors, particularly in self portraits. Among these themes is Rembrandt’s use of chiaroscuro, a contrast of light and dark, which is a signature of the lighting conditions necessary for projections. “You’re bouncing light in a zigzag, so it goes from your face to the flat mirror, to the curved mirror and then to the surface you’re working on,” Mr. O’Neill said. “For the face to be brightly illuminated, the rest of the room has to be dark — similar to if you’re watching something on an overhead projector.” Another piece of evidence he points to is Rembrandt’s offcenter gaze in many selfportraits. This suggests that Rembrandt might have been looking at a projection surface slightly off to the side, rather than straight onto a flat mirror, Mr. O’Neill said. He believes such a setup also would have made it easier for Rembrandt to create animated selfportraits, including one called “Rembrandt Laughing,” painted around 1628. If Rembrandt were not using a projection, he would have had to hold a laughing expression while looking back and forth between his canvas and a mirror, “the physical discipline of which seems quite extreme,” Mr. O’Neill said. With a projection, however, Rembrandt could have just traced himself without having to move his eyes.
Dr. Falco praised Mr. O’Neill’s new evidence. But the new study did not convince the critic of his and Mr. Hockney’s work, Dr. Stork, who countered that the image produced by two mirrors would appear upside down on the projection surface. “If the artist is painting over it with downward strokes, then when you take the painting and turn it right side up, all those brushstrokes would go upward,” he said. “But in every Rembrandt, not a single brushstroke goes in that direction.” There is no historical documentation that Rembrandt ever used optics, he added. “Rembrandt had lots of people in and out of his studio, and not one of them mentioned a projector in a note to a friend or wife? That seems unlikely,” Dr. Stork said. Mr. O’Neill, however, believes that the use of optics was common enough during Rembrandt’s time that the presence of mirrors in an art studio would not necessarily stand out. Furthermore, he said, it’s possible that Rembrandt used optics to get the proportions and placement of details right, and then finished his paintings freehand — which would explain the lack of upward brushstrokes. Even with the use of optics, Rembrandt was deserving of the title “old master,” Mr. O’Neill said. “People have accused me of being jealous, or trying to discredit Rembrandt, but that’s not at all what I’m trying to do,” he said. “If you gave a projection to someone on the street and told them to make a masterpiece, they would never give you a Rembrandt.” Far from trying to undermine artists like Rembrandt, Mr. O’Neill said, he is interested in how the use of optics “makes us look at artists as scientists.” At the same time scientists had just started using lenses to look at things invisibly small through microscopes and at the stars through telescopes, artists were using lenses to study the world around them, he said. As for whether he has successfully painted a selfportrait using his optical setup, Mr. O’Neill said he’s sure that day will come. “Someone will say, ‘prove it,’ and then I’ll show them how it’s done,” he said.
