Subject
Cameras (fwd)
From
Date
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From: Phil Howerton <phil@carolina.rr.com>
In my earlier posting on this subject, I mis-wrote the artist's name. It
is, of course, David Hockney; not Hockner.
Philip F. Howerton, Jr.
2812 Sunset Drive
Charlotte, NC 28209
> From: Phil Howerton <phil@carolina.rr.com>
>
>
> There is an absolutely fascinating article in the Jan 31, The New Yorker,
> "The Looking Glass," by Lawrence Weschler about the theories and
> discoveries of the artist David Hockner regarding the use of cameras
> lucida and obscura by the great masters (!) for, basically, tracing (!)
> the images of their subjects from reverse, upside down projections of
> these instrumentalities rather than using the older methods of
> mathematical projections, grids and such. If nothing else, it is
> provoking an interesting and amusing dog fight between Hockney, who seems
> to have all the-- quite revolutionary-- evidence and the art history
> oligarchy. The article concentrates on the "camera lucida" but from my
> inspection of Webster's 2nd and the description of how the artists worked
> (dark room screened from a light room with curtains and a peephole through
> which the image is projected), it would appear that the method was perhaps
> a combination of the two, the camera lucida and the camera obscura.
>
> Knowing, but not fully understanding (particularly the reversal, inversal)
> the many references in Nabokov to cameras lucida and obscura and not
> finding it indexed in Boyd, I wonder if anyone would care to comment on
> the use of these principles/instruments (more than simply mirrors) in
> Nabokov and, perhaps, wonder along with me if Nabokov didn't maybe
> somewhere score another scientific coup on the "professionals" and
> anticipate Mr. Hockney's discoveries. I remember particularly, the scene
> in Pnin, of the painting of the reflected scene in the side of an
automobile. It seems to me that the effect of reverted/inverted people,
places and language is a constant and important theme in Nabokov and I would
like to know more about it.
>
> Phil
>
> P.S. The article also provides an interesting historical context to
> creative=right brain postulates and, particularly, to the exercise of
> Betty Edward's (Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain) in which she
> explains that students draw much better if they view the portrait subject
> (photograph) upside down (quite true), which, according to Hockney, is
> exactly what the Great Masters were doing!
>
> Philip F. Howerton, Jr.
> 2812 Sunset Drive
> Charlotte, NC 28209
>
> "To be proud, to be brave, to be free"
In my earlier posting on this subject, I mis-wrote the artist's name. It
is, of course, David Hockney; not Hockner.
Philip F. Howerton, Jr.
2812 Sunset Drive
Charlotte, NC 28209
> From: Phil Howerton <phil@carolina.rr.com>
>
>
> There is an absolutely fascinating article in the Jan 31, The New Yorker,
> "The Looking Glass," by Lawrence Weschler about the theories and
> discoveries of the artist David Hockner regarding the use of cameras
> lucida and obscura by the great masters (!) for, basically, tracing (!)
> the images of their subjects from reverse, upside down projections of
> these instrumentalities rather than using the older methods of
> mathematical projections, grids and such. If nothing else, it is
> provoking an interesting and amusing dog fight between Hockney, who seems
> to have all the-- quite revolutionary-- evidence and the art history
> oligarchy. The article concentrates on the "camera lucida" but from my
> inspection of Webster's 2nd and the description of how the artists worked
> (dark room screened from a light room with curtains and a peephole through
> which the image is projected), it would appear that the method was perhaps
> a combination of the two, the camera lucida and the camera obscura.
>
> Knowing, but not fully understanding (particularly the reversal, inversal)
> the many references in Nabokov to cameras lucida and obscura and not
> finding it indexed in Boyd, I wonder if anyone would care to comment on
> the use of these principles/instruments (more than simply mirrors) in
> Nabokov and, perhaps, wonder along with me if Nabokov didn't maybe
> somewhere score another scientific coup on the "professionals" and
> anticipate Mr. Hockney's discoveries. I remember particularly, the scene
> in Pnin, of the painting of the reflected scene in the side of an
automobile. It seems to me that the effect of reverted/inverted people,
places and language is a constant and important theme in Nabokov and I would
like to know more about it.
>
> Phil
>
> P.S. The article also provides an interesting historical context to
> creative=right brain postulates and, particularly, to the exercise of
> Betty Edward's (Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain) in which she
> explains that students draw much better if they view the portrait subject
> (photograph) upside down (quite true), which, according to Hockney, is
> exactly what the Great Masters were doing!
>
> Philip F. Howerton, Jr.
> 2812 Sunset Drive
> Charlotte, NC 28209
>
> "To be proud, to be brave, to be free"