Leonardo, Michelangelo: The masters.... traced

Did anyone see 60 minutes about how "the masters" might have used mirrors to trace their subjects, and then paint them? Were Leonardo's subjets traced on the canvas? All of jan van eyck's paintings? I would like to theink they didn't, but they were artists making a living with art... surely they'd use every advantage possible to get the art done... wouldn't they?

i'm reminded of eyewoo's digital painting tutorials, and how he used a photo as a base drawing. the same technique, basically... this might interest no one whatsoever, but i was intrigued by it, and wanted someplace to try discussing it. bye now.

They're still masterpieces... even if they were traced. That's like saying photoshop produced artwork isn't art.

yeah, i'd like to see someone try to paint them even if they did have the traced outlines

Probably traced, but who doesn't use stuff to help them with their work today?

They also spent months/years on their work whereas today most photoshoppers try to do something in 10 seconds with a filter. Lots of skill is required to be that patient with their work. Not to mention how annoying it must have been to find the materials necessary to paint in that era.

They were masters of their time anyway. And I admire them for the achievements they made in light of how primitive their tools were.

We were wathcing this Da Vinci biography in Art today. And they said that he was a homosexual. They said that he had this apprentice boy, who was 11, who later became his lover. Im not lying, those are the same words from the biography. It also didnt picture Leonardo in a very good way, they said he was lazy and almost never finished any of his paintings and that the Mona Lisa isnt even a real person. That video was weird, it was one of the History Channel's Biography series.

We were wathcing this Da Vinci biography in Art today. And they said that he was a homosexual. They said that he had this apprentice boy, who was 11, who later became his lover. Im not lying, those are the same words from the biography. It also didnt picture Leonardo in a very good way, they said he was lazy and almost never finished any of his paintings and that the Mona Lisa isnt even a real person. That video was weird, it was one of the History Channel's Biography series.

Maybe, but none of them are sure, they are all speculations, and some where proven falses... Its like Molière, a great writter, but some say he married his dauther! But it is not sure. All of thse could be lie in order to harm them...

Also, I dont care how art is done, the way something is made does not affect hos nice it is or if it is art! The only thing tath mather is the final piece!

About their trick... DaVinci use mathematic to place the elements of all of his paintings... Mostly geometrics shapes. This methos can still be good today! In fact I like to divied my work in shapes as a basic plan!

Old way are not to be forggoten, whe stll use fonts who are centuries old... Times new ROMAN (all a lot of similar fonts) Are copy from ROMAN stone carving text! Therea are like 2000 years old! Garamond was created by a french pinter named Garamond who created fonts at the begining of press!

yeah, i'd like to see someone try to paint them even if they did have the traced outlines

Not all of these artist sketch wehre tranformed into painting. You can see sowm of them in biographies.

Also, I once read a bio from Davinci and it show a number of skecth done for the Mona Lisa, diferent versions, it is fun to try to guess how she would have look if he would as used one of these for the actual painting

Originally posted by Malevolent_Jester
We were wathcing this Da Vinci biography in Art today. And they said that he was a homosexual. They said that he had this apprentice boy, who was 11, who later became his lover. Im not lying, those are the same words from the biography. It also didnt picture Leonardo in a very good way, they said he was lazy and almost never finished any of his paintings and that the Mona Lisa isnt even a real person. That video was weird, it was one of the History Channel's Biography series.

Lots of artists are gay. Its just how it is, apparently. I assumed for a long time that Da Vinci was completely abstinant of sex being so into his work. Though as with all people, even he needed sex of some kind. I've read up enough on him to know kind of what he was like, laziness or whatever can be said about him. In any case, he did enough to gain the fame necessary for his life to be immortalized in our current culture.

In the eras gone by, pederasty was much more accepted. I've read reports that two thirds of the population of males in Florence Italy participated in man/boy love during the Renaissance. People thought more in line with how the ancient Greeks and Romans conducted their sex lives, which included pederasty. The culture of the time was just very different than it is today. Times have changed, everybody from the past is long dead, and cultural changes have brought about different mindsets about what is right and wrong.

..back to the original topic...the grand masters, leo etc...did NOT use mirrors. What you are talking about WAS used by Jan Van Eyke and fellow era painters. They used the newly invented projectors. It was basically a box with a series of mirrors and then daylight was shone into a hole. The iamge was then projected onto the canvas. This is why Eyke's paintings are so damn realistic and breathtaking....it still doesn't take away the fact that he wasn't a master of art. Art is about seeing things...van gogh say things in a weird way, but the main point is that they all mimmiced what they saw. Using projectors simply made the job of working out mathematical/geometric problems easier to see. It's very interesting stuff