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The Grand Canal and the Cannaregio by Canaletto
In the Royal Library of Windsor Castle (73/8 x 105/8 inches or 187 x 270 mm)
How did Canaletto draw such complex scenes? He seems to have helped himself with a device called a camera obscura. That was invented years before and used by the German artist Dürer. By means of mirrors and lenses, the camera projected on the artist’s paper an image of the scene he had before him. In this way, he could trace its lines.
The camera was an aid but it by no means explained the astounding results of his drawings. The projected images helped him fix the perspective lines and the relative sizes of buildings in his picture. But every single line, every cross-hatched shadow, was hand-drawn.
It was his aesthetic judgment that determined each stroke of the pen. It was his genius that kept the lines from becoming sterile, pedantic.
Canaletto doesn’t seem to have thought that the sureness of his hand was worth bragging about. But in old age his good eyesight surprised him. He signed one of his last drawings this way: “I made the present drawing…..at the age of sixty-eight, without glasses”.
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I saw that camera oscura in an excellent movie about Vermeer, The girl with a Pearl Earring or something like that, excellent restitution of an artist an a time… And the good films on painters life are so rare… Vermeer had a camera obscura like that…
Danu: I was going to put in a picture I found of Joshua Reynolds’ camera obscura. Did you ever see a book by the British painter David Hockney on the secret techniques of the old masters? I think he tries to show that they all used some optical tool to do their tricks. But I haven’t yet read him more than superficially. When I do I’ll explain his theory.
Hey, I’m approaching that age and I can still see to draw. They may not be all that good mind you but I think there are lines on the paper. I can’t be absolutely sure. It seems so dark in here.
Take a look at what they say about Hockney on artrenewal.org.
I saw a show of his where he drew head/shoulder works using camera lucida I believe. He can’t draw for shit with any tool so he demeans those who can draw. It is really ridiculous to claim no one can draw accurately without the aid of a tool. There are lots of people who can draw well.
I agree with you, Bill. Plenty of people can draw well without cameras obscuras or any other optical aid (except glasses, maybe). But it is true that many famous artists experimented with devices like that. Boy were those artists at artrenewal roused by Hockney’s theories!