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 😉.
Christine Dytrych am
Well said. Wordy or not. Lucy is a helpful working tool. All tradespeople have tools, this is one tool of our trade. You may use it or not.
1LTLos am
Utilization of a Lucy or any drawing tool is not an insult. Rather, when you have been making art work for 53 years as I have, you will realize your dexterity, your shoulder joints, and your eyesight do not remain static as if one were still a youthful kid. Our bodies change, our stamina changes. The desire to create remains but using some form of assistance is far from insulting. In fact, many people employ the use of drawing and painting programs and even AI!!! If one is insulted that speaks to a level of immaturity that no amount of my words can possibly deal with. You think you can draw unaided – you think you are talented. But those are words. I began my professional art career in 1970. What have you accomplished? I recently purchased a Lucy because even in my 70’s, people commission me to paint their portraits. All I desire is to get their likeness correct. Their charm, their essence, their character – That is up to me to extract and to re-create on canvas. And that is what I do best. Ivo, you sound like a jealous narcissist. I know fantastic artists who can draw circles around you and your work. Who are you to even suggest such things? A little boy Art tyrant. Let people do as they wish. Real artists do not concern themselves with others process. Grow up.
Ray Vanneman am
Sometimes “art” is not art at all, its an expression of love intended to stimulate the imagination of others. I am no artist, but when I realized that my kids teacted to characters their size, i began making wooden 4 foot characters that seemed to inspire them! I would present them on their birthdays as a party decoration. Thirty years later they still have them. They were always a hit. They were recently collected and used as decoration for a parade float. Most were hauled off to show-and-tell. Almost always they wanted to read more about the character. My son even went on to major in art and has worked on many of the cg scenes in the Marvel movies.
Now my grandchildren are starting to arrive i got the Lucy to help me improve the drawing and speed the process up. My work may not meet the art standards, but for me it helps achieve a lasting bond and loving relationship between artist and recipient. For practical me, what more could I ask of art.
Shelley am
I understand the optics that make these types of drawing methods possible were initially developed for scientific purposes. Hockney places this at early as 1420. I believe it was a Dutch scientist, also an artist bridging the two fields, that found the same ground glass lens that made both telescope and microscope possible also gave us this tool for capturing the world as it was for the first time.
Astonishingly, later, the individual who first developed what we now know of as chemical photography in 1841, William Henry Fox Talbot, was driven to do so because he couldn’t make good enough images with the Lucida.
Paraphrasing Goethe’s prescience, “…Tools will not allow artists to create works of equal value …because a tool is not a creator.”
Blackbearybears am
Great article, thank you for sharing! I too have wondered about this being a “cheat” tool. Then I noticed mural artists using a projector which projected their image onto the wall which they traced and later painted. Googling some of these devices reveals many artists (including masters) used a variety of tools to “project” an image onto their canvas. Art is more than drawing out the thing you want to paint, composition and values are huge. I do wonder about the software “Procreate”, is that cheating? Or what about AI, is that art or is that cheating?
Paula am
Tools are exactly that .. tools. Even when I have attempted to sketch and paint a scene from someone’s photo or a drawing, the end result is always going to be different from theirs, most often vastly so.
Kudos on such a fabulous article and a subject that needed addressing.
Robin Barnhart am
I’ve been able to draw all my life. With time and practice, these skills increase. I purchased one of these when you first started selling them and have only used it a couple of times. It did not stop my talent or increase it. It just help speed up the original drawing process.
All His blessings,
robin
matt am
I am very happy you developed this simple and affordable product. I got mine years ago when I first discovered it online. I wouldnt be surprised if some people call the Mahl Stick cheating.
Some people can’t learn perspective without a foundation, this device trains the eye to see where teaching can’t. Art snobs are everywhere in every time period and many historical masters disagreed with the common ideas of their day, especially self appointed critics.
Your advertising is very appropriate and direct and thank you for doing the hard work to bring this to market.
Patti am
I agree with all of the above – I’ve been an artist all my life, I’ve sold some fine art paintings, also hand built sculptured ceramics in our local stores which sold very well. I’ve basically used a photo that I’ve taken to reproduce in oils or acrylics or pencils or watercolors, and also in creating ceramics. I’ve watched awesome portrait artists on TV, and most of them took their camera to work from – an enlarged photo beside their easel, whilst their subject sat posed in front of them for hours. They could more easily sketch out the shape of the subjects which gave them a good start at having a very good portrait finished in a 4 hour time slot. It is no different using a camera than using the Lucida camera. And even though most of the 6 artists used the camera to get their work started quickly, every portrait looked quite different of the same posing subject. Some artists would also strike up conversation with the subject to learn their personality, to help make personality become part of the portrait. That’s where the true artistry shows up – not a simple outer frame of the subject, but of the colours used and how those shapes and colours, light and shadow are applied to achieve a ‘feeling’ (which could also be interpreted differently by each artist). That’s what any good artist always wants to achieve, and why some people will even be brought to tears by looking at a painting. I am always open to learning new ways of achieving great effects, but that is not what the Lucida helps me do. It’s a simple way to begin, a good tool, nothing more. So if any person feels the Lucida is cheating, or they feel threatened by it, then perhaps they are not aware of the true meaning of art.
Heidi am
I went to a David Hockney exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum last year in Cambridge, England. He definitely used a camera lucida in drawing portraits, as explained in the description alongside the portrait, “Martin Kemp”. I could post them if you allowed jpg. The museum presented a portrait by Jean-Auguste Ingres (1780-1867), “Portrait of Mrs. John Mackie”. The museum believed Ingres to have used an optical device like the camera lucida. In fact the room was all about using the camera lucida in art. Lots of professional artists use optical helps. I bought your Lucy, and it helped me accurately render a watercolor portrait of my sister. Thank you indeed.
Jon Griffiths am
Thank you for this short elucidating essay. For me, it shed new light (and no heat) on this deeply considered issue. Your FB commenter should be urged to read what Martin Kemp has written on this topic.
Jeanne am
I agree with all that was already said so I won’t reiterate it. I will say that what popped into my mind was that there are people that use the grid method to draw their subject. That is a tool and it has been used for years and no one calls that cheating.
Ron Henningsen am
I agree with your comments and perspective. A an instructor once told me “you can always try to pick the fly poop out of the pepper but you will never get anything else done”.
Complaining just because you have a means to do so doesn’t make for a valid complaint.
Diana Kazmaier am
Thank you…I just read a well written and very informative article/blog. The background information was fascinating.
Thomas Agerton am
Well put response. I would assume everyone has an opinion, but wouldn’t it be nice if this person would dig a little deeper into the device in question before making statements like this, especially with no working knowledge of the device. Not all of us carry the Michaelangelo gene. Just saying!