Letter to Chronicle of Higher Education
Scientists and artists should consider all the evidence
To the Editor,
As a former Artist-in-Residence through the New York State Council of the Arts and the scientist to provide the first independent analysis of David Hockney's bold theory that Renaissance painters used optical projections as early as 1420, I read Ellen Winner's "Art History Can Trade Insights With The Sciences" [The Chronicle Review, July 2] with interest--and some concern.
She urges readers to consider the evidence, but presents only
evidence consistent with the theory--a classic case of confirmation
bias. Consider her two examples: Jan van Eyck's Albergati
portrait and Lorenzo Lotto's Husband and wife. Dr.
Winner is impressed by both the fidelity and the "errors"
in the Albergati oil portrait, and believes these show van Eyck
used optics. She must be unaware of the peer-reviewed discovery
by Thomas Ketelsen et al of tiny pinprick holes along the contour
of the Albergati silverpoint source that all but prove that mechanical
(not optical) copying/enlarging was employed, such as by the Reductionszirkel
or compasso da reduzione, a simple device known from Roman
times. Such distinctive holes play no role in the optical projection
theory yet they explain the fidelity and the "errors"
found in the oil copy better than does the use of optics. Likewise
she points to perspective anomalies in Husband and wife
as evidence of optics, but the optical explanation relies fundamentally
upon the assumption that such carpets were symmetric. She must
be unaware of Rosamund E. Mack's published photographs of 16th-century
"Lotto carpets" surviving in museum collections showing
that such carpets deviate significantly from symmetry. In short,
this evidence strongly suggests that the optical "fits"
to the anomalies in the painting are meaningless.
We hope Dr. Winner will take her own advice ("To decide whether
to accept a scientific explanation of an artistic phenomenon,
one must evaluate the evidence") and consider alternate explanations
and all the evidence, not just the incomplete evidence
hand-picked to support a pre-determined stance. When she does
so, she may find she too will join the vast consensus of experts
who reject Hockney's deeply flawed theory, the expanding consensus
she explicitly bemoans.
David G. Stork
Chief Scientist
Ricoh Innovations
Consulting Professor of Electrical Engineering
Visiting Lecturer in Art History
Stanford University