View a gallery of paintings from Lawrence Weschler's article
It's got all the elements of a good thriller, but instead of Professor Plum in the library with the candlestick, it was Van Eyck in broad daylight with a concave lens. At least, that's the contention of British artist David Hockney, whose notion that the old masters used optical devices to help render their paintings' perfect lines is sparking more debate in the art world than elephant dung ever could.
Hockney's got a number of believers, artists and scientists and historians who say the proof is in the paintings of the secretive 15th century Flemish masters, Robert Campin and Van der Weyden among them. But the skeptics abound, too. Hockney, they say, just wishes he could draw nearly as well as the old greats. Ouch. Partisans from both camps duked it out in New York over the weekend. Round two is next.
