THE GREAT DIVIDE: ANOTHER ART MYSTERY
When did humans first begin painting the illusion of three dimensions? Where did it happen? Who gets credit? These are some of the questions we will confront in discussing the mystery of “The Great Divide.” I call it The Great Divide because many people believe that humans painted flat, two-dimensional figures for eons and then suddenly, just before the High Renaissance, discovered how to create the illusion of three dimensions on canvas.
Is that true?
To get to the bottom of our mystery, we will need to examine and date quite a lot of paintings. We will also need to agree on terms. What makes a painting, or a figure in a painting, appear to be three-dimensional?
Coming to Terms with Terms
Before we go further, let’s come to terms. What makes a painting appear three-dimensional? Is it linear perspective? Is it the shading of clothing or faces to show depth? Perspective has been called “the representation of solid objects and three-dimensional space in accordance with our optical perception of these things.” A French expression, I think, best explains what we are getting at: Trompe-l’œil or “fool the eye.” In art, the phrase is used to express the optical illusion that the subject, painted on a flat surface, has volume.
I think a story might provide us with the first clue to our mystery.
The best (or at least most entertaining) description of three-dimensional painting is told about the ancient Greeks. Zeuxis and Parrhasius were rival painters who had a competition to determine who could produce the most realistic painting. Zeuxis painted a still life that fooled wild birds, which flew down to eat the grapes. Parrhasius told his rival that his painting was hidden behind the curtains in his room, but when Zeuxis tried to draw the curtains aside, he found out that they were painted onto the wall by Parrhasius. Zeuxis conceded the competition.
WHERE TO BEGIN?
The place to start the investigation of our mystery is right before the High Renaissance. The 1300s seem too early, as people in Europe were occupied with kidnapped Popes, the Hundred Years War and the plague. About that same time, the East and the Middle East, from the Ottoman Empire to Russia, suffered the last great Mongolian conqueror, Tamerlane.
That next century is surely more promising. Indeed, many art lovers and historians believe that Tommaso Masaccio bridged The Great Divide. His pre-Renaissance painting of the Expulsion of Adam and Eve in 1425 was certainly innovative and captivating. This from the art department at Sacramento State:
“The fresco series for the Brancacci Chapel ... illustrates another of Masaccio's great innovations—the portrayal of natural light to define the human body and its draperies. In these frescoes, rather than bathing his scenes in flat uniform light, Masaccio illuminated them from a single source of light and created a play of light and subtle shadow that imitated the way light falls on three-dimensional objects, giving his figures a natural, realistic quality unknown in the art of his day.”
(emphasis added). Encyclopedia Britannica notes:
“The shapes of Masaccio’s Adam and Eve are constructed not with line but with strongly differentiated areas of light and dark that give them a pronounced three-dimensional sense of relief…. Masaccio’s figures seem to exist within the world of the spectator illuminated by natural light.”
The End of Our Mystery?
That seems definitive. We can stop with Masaccio and his use of light to create three-dimensional objects, right? Let’s continue further back in time to make sure we’re not missing anything.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti may have bridged the Great Divide eighty-one years earlier in 1344. His Annunciation “contains the first use of clear linear perspective.” It is thought that the diagonal tiles on the floor create depth:
What a gorgeous optical illusion! The subjects of the painting appear to be in a room with depth because of that floor. Each tile is presumably close to the same size, but the magic of depth is created by making the tiles closest to the viewer larger than the ones adjacent to that golden wall. Moreover, the shading of the robes produces the illusion of solid forms. The Virgin is a little off profile, showing two eyes and a three-dimensional face.
The Chinese
I am always fascinated by progress, when a hurdle is finally overcome. Defeating the dread Smallpox was one such hurdle in terms of medicine. It is widely believed that Dr. Edward Jenner developed the first vaccine (for Smallpox) in England in 1798. In fact, the Chinese and Indians may have beat him to it. What about painting?
These are details from a Chinese scroll painting by Li Gonglin dated to 1085. The scroll is entitled “The Classic of Filial Piety,” and the pictures were akin to illustrations in a book.
As you can see, the artist was easily capable of the illusion of three dimensions with his figures. In fact, he showed side views of faces, but then included two eyes in some of his figures, especially that horse! Note how the shadow works to outline the horse’s hind legs. There is also shadow that describes the man’s form walking in front of the horse.
The aerial perspective below is contained in a detail from the Japanese “Illustrated Legends of the Jin'ōji Temple,” painted in the 1300s. It shows solid forms with volume, a common ground that they stand on, and a bird’s eye view.
The Carolingian Renaissance
From approximately 780 to 900, there was an earlier renaissance that sought to revive aspects of ancient Greek and Roman art. This effort was centered in what is now France and Germany. Much of the art that survived was created for Charlemagne, his heirs and their courts. Here's an illumination from the Lorsch Gospels from about 778:
The shading of the apostle's face shows three-dimensionality. The arched shaded area of the brown robe above the apostle's right knee indicates a fold in the fabric and depth, as well as a rounded form underneath it. The foot stool doesn't look quite right, but the feet are on it, grounded to another dimension. The best three-dimensional illusion, though, was reserved for that bird. Those fat thighs were painted to attach to different sides of a cylindrical body. Even our earliest artists did a pretty good job with animals.
Even before this, were there paintings that showed depth, a three-dimensional look? Did anything cast a shadow back in the long, long ago? Let’s look at some Egyptian Mummy Portraits.
Egyptian Mummy Portraits
The ancient Pharaohs had their golden masks and statutes. Later in Egyptian history, well-to-do dead people had portraits made and tucked into their mummy wrappings. These were painted on wood with an encaustic formulation (basically pigment and beeswax).
The portrait on the right is from approximately the year 200, and it shows a woman who could afford jeweled earrings, an emerald clasp and a pearl necklace that is nearly hidden by the gold leaf applied just below her chin.
Most importantly for our purposes, the painting depicts the illusion of three-dimensionality. Notice the specks of white paint on her pupils! Also, her ears, especially the one on the right, are in shadow. Her eyes, eyelids, eyebrows and eyelashes are painted in different colors to show depth. Light highlights the young lady’s hair just above the forehead.
This is a masterpiece of three dimensions. The artist was skilled in the art of illusion. But was this as early as we can go?
On the left is another mummy portrait, but this one was created approximately 100 years before the depiction of the young lady. It was painted in the same manner, with an encaustic formula on a wood panel and was found wrapped in the gentleman’s mummy.
Again, we see the globs of white paint that highlight and bring out the depth of his eyes. There appears to be shadow in the interior of the right ear (his left), and the three-dimensionality of the face is created with shading around the nose and the eyes. The lips look three-dimensional because the artist used different shades to lighten the lower lip and shade the upper.
At the time of the mummy portraits, Egypt was heavily influenced by Rome. Christianity, as a state religion, was still a couple of centuries in the future, but painting was already showing a full three dimensions.
Hidden away in tombs in Egypt’s dry climate, these treasures were preserved. Yet, the story goes, that when the first cache of these priceless treasures were found, many of them were burned as kindling!
Pompeii
Were any other Roman or Grecian paintings preserved like that? Sure. The ones securely encased in molten lava!
On the right we see a young married couple, believed to be a lawyer and his wife, who, unfortunately, set up a household and legal practice in Pompeii.
This mural appeared on the wall of their home, which was eventually covered with lava from the eruption of Vesuvius.
Smaller specks of white paint show the depth of the young woman’s eyes. The man is holding what may be a legal brief, while the lady has a writing instrument in her hand and laid on her chin. Shadow below their chins help to create the illusion of three-dimensional form.
Additionally, the darker tones underneath the ladies fingers make them look to be fully formed and cylindrical.
This young couple had just set up their household—it wasn’t fully furnished yet—when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. It unleashed a thermal energy estimated to be a hundred thousand times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Pyroclastic surges and ashfall deposits buried inhabited areas, including this house and mural in Pompeii.
Also found in the ruins of Pompeii was the Alexander Mosaic, which isn’t technically a painting; it is a mosaic. Instead of brushstrokes, you see the effect of 1.5 million tiny pieces of colored tiles. Most people believe that it was a copy of an ancient Greek painting. If that’s the case, then I think we are arriving at a solution to our mystery.
You can see that the horses and men are standing or lying on firm ground. This ground is so firm that it can display shadows! Although we only see a profile of Alexander the Great (with the curly black hair on his horse on the left of the mosaic), we can observe both of the eyes of his opponent, Darius II of Persia, riding in the chariot on the right.
Also, in the lower right-hand corner, you can see that the soldier dying on the ground is able to see his own reflection in the polished metal of a battle shield. This piece is dated to 100 BC, and what a marvel of three dimensions it is! The gentleman watching his dying reflection in the shield shows masterful skill at illusion, and adds a fourth dimension of reflection. The foreshortened nature of the horse (whose rear end is sticking in our faces) shows skill at perspective.
Another striking aspect of the Alexander Mosaic is the way the artist showed depth (and a vanishing point) by making the heads smaller as your eye travels back into the piece. Notice the head of the horse on the ground. It is almost twice as big as the head of the horse directly above and behind it. The head of the warrior next to it, is about half the size of the head of Darius II.
More of Pompeii’s Secrets
This is called Theseus with the Body of the Minotaur. Again, we have shadows! Each individual in the painting is standing on solid ground. Moreover, it is shared ground. They are all standing in the same street. Also, that door, probably too small for the hero Theseus, was adequate for the normal-sized individuals depicted in the fresco.
This was painted on a wall in Pompeii in the first century.
What is really interesting about the painting is how the faces seem to trail off in the background—just as in real life—as it gets harder to distinguish individual characteristics with the greater distance. This gives the fresco a great depth and naturalistic look.
This is called Jupiter Enthroned with Mars, Venus and Cupid. Look at all the shadows! Even the translucent vase in the foreground is casting an appropriately dim shadow. That shadow isn’t as dark as the shadows cast by the bodies of the gods that are less capable of light refraction. The vase also has glints of sunlight showing off its shape.
Light is falling on the group in the foreground, but it doesn’t penetrate so well into the background. Between the shaded column (the side facing us catching the light, while the other side is shaded), the throne, and those diagonals on the solid floor, we have linear perspective here, folks!
This fresco was painted in Pompeii around the year 62.
If the Romans did it, then it’s pretty easy to surmise that the Greeks did it before them. And they did. What you see below is a wall fresco from a royal tomb in Macedonia (ancient Greece). It was painted in the 4th Century BC, and it is called Hades Abducting Persephone.
As you can see, the figures appear quite three-dimensional, although there is nothing left of any perspective vis-à-vis the ground (if it existed in the first place). The figures, though, are shaded quite intentionally and effectively to show form and volume. The chariot appears to be flimsy but three-dimensional.
What really sticks out are the dark shaded areas under the arms of the gods in the chariot. Those darkly shaded areas are effective in showing depth and roundness of form. The illusion of three-dimensionality.
Cave Paintings
Can we go even further into the past to find artists achieving sculptural roundness on a flat surface? Yes, we can go back to some of the very earliest paintings. Those that you can only find in caves, and only those caves, it seems, that suffered a landslide to cover them up.
This painting is from the Altamira Cave in Spain. The artist plainly and intentionally attempted to depict the now-extinct bison in three dimensions. The legs of the animal connect to different sides of the body, as seen in greater detail below:
The graphic on the right shows an American bison with an inset detail of the head from the cave painting. These were not the same animals.
The illustration is helpful, though, to show how our cave-dwelling ancestors painted an eye to look sunken in. That was how they achieved a three-dimensional effect, by using shading, much like Giotto about 17,000 years later.
We can go even earlier. The Chauvet Cave in France is home to paintings that are dated from 30,000 to 33,000 years old. These paintings also show intentional three-dimensionality, especially with regard to the hind legs.
Look at how the hind legs are paired, with one going on each side of the rhinoceros torso. This very ancient caveman or woman created an illusion on the wall of the cave.
Almost as soon as we began to paint, we began to create the illusion of depth and roundness, of sculpture-like form on flat surfaces.
Our ancestors used multiple pigments, including charcoal and ochre, and tests have determined that, on occasion, they would further dilute their pigments to get a lighter shade—to highlight depth.
A Confession
Until recently, I believed the thesis contained in the first paragraph: Humans painted flat, two-dimensional figures for eons and then, just before the Renaissance, discovered how to create the illusion of three dimensions. This misconception, I believe, is prevalent. I knew of cave paintings, depictions of the Egyptian Pharaohs (which showed them in profile, flat, “walking like an Egyptian”), and I knew about the two-dimensional painting of human figures, again in profile, on ancient Greek vases.
But I was wrong.
Conclusion
Was there a Great Divide? Did humans suddenly become capable of creating the illusion of a three-dimensional image on a flat surface in the 1400s? That does not appear to be the case. From what we've seen, that particular "divide" was, at best, a re-learning of ancient perspective and a refining of it with optics, Mathematics, better paint, benefactors, and a larger population producing more skilled artists.
There is also the very real possibility that three-dimensional painting simply went out of favor for a time. This is an argument that deserves its own diary. But why would our ancestors have such a skill and not use it? Consider that we are currently going through a phase that rejects the naturalism and three-dimensionality that was considered beautiful during the Renaissance and the three centuries after it.
Our current "great divide," may relate to something as simple as the camera. What is there left to do when anybody with a digital camera can dress people up in costumes, put them to posing, and create a perfect depiction of realism? Sometimes we even set those pictures in motion and call them “movies.” Anybody can take a hike into the mountains, and, with a simple click of a finger, open an electronic shutter and "paint" the most wondrous landscape.
It is claimed by some scholars that Byzantine Art, which seems to exalt the two-dimensional flatness of a painting surface, was an intentional choice, or at least a custom. I think they are probably right.
If there was a Great Divide, I would suggest that it is represented in the evidence as occurring between the emergence of the very first human artist more than 40,000 years ago and those three-dimensional rhinos and bison painted on cave walls in France about 30,000 years ago. In answer to the opening questions of when, where and who: (1) 30,000 years ago, (2) France, and (3) the unknown Master of the Chauvet Cave’s “Flying Rhinoceros.”
So, why don’t we finish this up with an epic Timeline of Three-Dimensionality?