Hockney's Theory. Secrets of the Old Masters

Subsidy

Synopsis

At the end of the Middle Ages, Western painting as a whole began seeking to imitate nature and reproduce images as seen by the naked eye as faithfully as possible. Until just recently, it was commonly thought that classical painters learned their technique and skills from renowned masters, by serving for long years as their assistants. No one gave serious thought to the idea that from the Renaissance on, painters might be experimenting with avant-garde techniques, just like their modern-day counterparts, in order to more accurately imitate nature or shake up artistic tradition.

And then a few years ago, painter David Hockney discovered that the Old Masters used several different optical devices to help them draw! These devices allowed them to project an image of the object they were painting onto a sheet or a canvas. They were the precursors, of sorts, to Andy Warhol's overhead projector.

It was already known that various techniques could be used to help painters achieve greater realism. Some were mathematical (like those described by Durer). Others were optical devices (the camera obscura). But only "bad" painters were thought to have ever used them.
The film will prove that some of the Old Masters too made use of these tools.

His claims caused an immediate uproar, as if he had desecrated the sacred realm of art historians. A few years later, things have calmed back down. And Hockney's boldest hypotheses are now gradually accepted. The time has thus come to calmly put together a film which shows, without leaving any doubt whatsoever, the key role optical devices played in the works of several Old Masters: Campin, Memling, Van Eyck, Holbein, Caravaggio, Durer, Vermeer, Velasquez, etc.

We would like instead to take an indepth look at the parallel and inseparable evolution of science and painting over the centuries....