Addressing Accusation of Lies and Insults

Addressing Accusation of Lies and Insults

This morning I was mulling over a couple of ideas for a new blog post when I got distracted by and started responding to a Facebook comment on my previous post: ‘Can You Really 'Cheat' at Art?’.  The comment reads: 

A lucida is not cheating. You can tell the difference when someone with talent and training uses it compared someone who doesnt/isn't. What I find reprehensible is your constant and flagrant lies about who used these. The Lucida was not invented until 1806.

None of the "old masters " used this.

Ingres did not use this. He had skills.

Please stop insulting talented people.

As my mind started picking apart the comment, I realized I had found my next blog topic. Sometimes embracing a distraction is the most productive thing to do.

I have no argument with the first part of the comment, they are expressing their opinion on cheating in art—that is all fine and great. But then they abruptly transition to accusing me and/or my company of flagrant and reprehensible lies. Then self-contradictingly asserts that mentioning the tools an artist may have used is insulting them. This is what I would like to unpack and address.

In the same way my teenaged son constantly corrects his younger siblings on every trivial or perceived incorrect statement, this comment makes a fair point. The LUCY Drawing Tool is an improved camera lucida. The camera lucida was not invented until 1806. The term "Old Masters" generally refers to the most recognized European artists—working between the Renaissance and 1800. So by this logic none of the “Old Masters” could have used the camera lucida. That is technically true. And sometimes in advertising you can’t regress into the murky minutia of the past and tease out every nuance. But as my teenaged son will hopefully find out some day—the more you learn, the less you know.

The camera lucida was patented in 1806 by William Hyde Wollaston, but the optical principles involved were described nearly 200 years earlier in Johannes Kepler’s “Dioptrice”. When a thing is patented and when a thing is first used or known do not always coincide—especially when you are dealing with something as fundamental as reflecting light. No one knows if anyone built or used a reflective device like what became the camera lucida before Wollaston, but there is no reason they couldn’t have.

And of course, the knowledge of and use of the camera obscura goes even farther back and includes the entire “Old Master” Renaissance era when Leonardo da Vinci was sketching hundreds of diagrams of the camera obscura, including the one below. The camera obscura is a predecessor of the camera lucida. In both cases ‘camera’ means chamber or room. ‘Obscura’ means dark. ‘Lucida’ means light. The name camera lucida was chosen both to pay tribute to its forerunner and to juxtapose the way the two devices operate.

The point is there is not just one type of optical device that was used in art, but myriads of methods and tools made and used over the centuries. That is why we distinguish between device classes like camera lucidas and earlier predecessors like the camera obscuras when possible or [in order to avoid going in to confusing and unnecessary detail] use general terms such as ‘tools like this’ or ‘similar devices’. The LUCY drawing tool is not the camera lucida invented in 1806, nor is Wollaston’s lucida a camera obscura, nor is the obscura described by da Vinci the same as the one Vermeer would have used, but one cannot dismiss the evidence for the use of optics in art by conflating and quibbling about what tool was used when by who. The commenter may not like or agree with it, but our statement and belief that great artists of the past used tools like this is no less a lie than their insistence that they did not. A certain amount of evidence exists, and people make up their own mind about what may or may not have happened in the past. That's how historical science works.

Now quickly on the idea that talking about the history of optics in art is somehow “insulting talented people”. This commenter first acknowledges that they can tell the “difference when someone with talent and training uses” a camera lucida, inferring that even if an artist uses these sorts of tools, they still need talent and training to produce exceptional work. The commenter then turns around and infers that our stating that an artist with talent and training may have used an optical device to help create their exceptional work is “insulting talented people”. You can’t have it both ways. Of course, using any of these tools still requires talent and training, practice and patience.  This accusation of insulting talented people is groundless. Giving people tools to help them achieve their full potential is not cheating and acknowledging the tools that help achieve greatness is not insulting.

I’ve spoken my piece. I have no problem with different opinions or beliefs. Read and research, wonder and walk around; think whatever thing you want. But if you accuse me of lying—you may get a wordy response 😉.

Comments 56

olga on

I have to say- tools like the Lucy were in fact being used for thousands of years- from the time of Euclidean geometry to ensure precision was occurring in mastering not only design, art, sculptures, architecture etc. There is nothing wrong with using tools to get an image as precise as possible. There is no quick fix to art- it is anything goes and there really is no cheating. Who ever mass produces does create a cheaper product that is all. I have not had the chance to actually use the tool. This weekend I plan on doing so as I have an huge painting I am working on and I want to do something very precise.

Nancy on

The LUCY is a wonderful tool, especially for portraits.
Think about it…how many portraits of Henry VIII have we seen and none of them look alike!?!? A LUCY would have been helpful then.

Mark Siermaczeski on

A good working artist solve problems and gets stuff done.

Jim C. on

I don’t look at it as cheating just to get a layout you still have to finish the work. I liken it to building a house you wouldn’t want a builder to work without a blueprint would you? It just a visual aid.

Kay on

I wonder why it is such a fad to think that artists MUST do everything the “hardest way possible” in order to be “pure” or “true”. And why do we “allow” some tools, but not others.

Erin on

If the Lucida is “not cheating” then how are you insulting talented people? Furthermore, if the Lucida is “not cheating” then why does the next sentence imply that only the unskilled would need to use this tool? “Ingres did not use this. He had skills.”? What a nimrod.

Jaco V on

I agree fully and would suggest giving some of those critics one and demand a piece of art from them.

Deb on

I applaud you for your creative and clear response. Thank you for the additional information. I knew some of this, but am pleased to have learned more. I appreciate the time time you took to educate others in a respectful manner.

Laura on

Bravo and well said. I love when alternative conversations are had that “check” negative responses and allow food for thought.

Joy on

I teach my high schoolers how to sight size with a pencil and a plumb line. Those tools help them see the angles but then they must use eye to hand coordination to draw. A Lucy allows an antisocial to trace the contours of a three dimensional object but if the artist doesn’t enhance the drawing with color or shading it is lifeless.
I introduced the high schoolers to Lucy when they were discussing Chat GPT artificial intelligence. It seems that they can take a self and that app (modern tool) will alter their face to look like Picasso’s “Weeping Woman”. I stated that using a tool is fine but that the only thing the AI has been fed was Cubism, so they needed to work with the output as a rough sketch and continue to enhance it with their own human imagination.
PS if there was a class set price maybe we could influence the next generation of artists about Lucy’s value.

Avon on

Bravo! Tools are tools and I am betting AI will change how artists start projects too. It’s not how you start… art is how you finish.

Nathan Boudreaux on

As a fellow artist to communicate using a tool should not fall within lines of some ones opinion, but rather the purpose line(art) is understood.

Victoria Warford on

So tired of bitter snarkiness… Surely in the realm of the art world, where creativity and the pleasure it brings the artist are paramount, the means by which the product is achieved is beyond criticism. Personally, I have no expectation of being considered the next genius of whatever medium, the pleasure is in the creation. And if someone else enjoys the work? Bonus!

Robert Jones on

I think your cross correspondent may have got annoyed because David Hockney has propounded the view that old masters did use a form of camera lucida, and that that got some people very worked up. It is only a theory – one backed up by a good deal of thought on DH’s part, but still only a theory. I have not used any form of camera lucida, so haven’t used your product, obviously: but maybe if I weren’t so mean with money, I would: I certainly wouldn’t worry about taking a shortcut – ‘whatever helps’, is my motto. Just because a device was invented in 1806 and patented does not, of course, mean that it had never been used in more primitive iterations earlier: I don’t know if the old boys used a camera lucida or not, but I’d think no less of them if they did; I’m still pondering a purchase – after all, I CAN draw, and like finding my way into a drawing (and sometimes, of course, failing). If I had to perform a commission in a hurry, without the luxury of time – your device would come into its own and probably save me hours.

Constance on

Absolutely Truthfully and unapologetically stated.
Commendable to any differences of opinion restated.
Thank you for your example.

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