My wife (
http://www.caroleaharris.com) found this article at a site she hangs out at.
It's a lot of reading, but talks about the use of optical devices in art and the history of their use.
The guy who wrote it is a bit snobbish, but it is food for thought.
Enjoy!!
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I'll make this quick because it's all amateur myth making that helps keep you on your knees.
1) professional artists have and will always use materials and tools that enhance their ability to stay competitive. Unlike hobbyists, their prime goal is not the deep and meaningful expression of their most rare and marvelous soul...it's making a living.
2) the use of optical aids was a well established fact. There are thousands of pictures showing the use of everything from grids, to camera oscura (dark room, not obscure room) to camera lucida (light room). The devices are simple and accurate.
3) ever wonder why so many old drawings are small when the final piece was big...and why they were gridded? That's because the camera lucida only makes small drawings.
4) hobbyists don't know how to choose a brush let alone how to handle an optical device. Most have never even seen a camera lucida let alone used one
so they make wild guesses as to the debilitating effects on the artwork. If you can't draw, your tracing will show it. Drawing with a camera lucida is beyond the ability of all but skilled draughtsmen. The advantage is that it is fast and accurate, but it's as difficult to master as riding a unicycle. If your livlihood depends on it, you master it or starve.
Hockney is absolutely correct in all of his assertions. Anyone who has actually used those devices can tell you which ones were used because each has it's own subtle (too subtle for arguing hobbyists to see) fingerprint. Also, seeing that telescopes were in use in Gallileo's time and microscopes were very common during Vermeer's day, the technology was available and the devices were available. Vermeer's specular highlights are a record of direct observation of the specular highlights produced by raw lenses with no color corrective coatings (those came later).
Do you honestly think that a master would say..."oh no. That would be cheating and against The Rules" (the book of rules published for art competitions at the Olympics)..."I'd rather go out of business than compete on such a base level. It would affect my spiritual and artistic purity."
The truth is that it has no bad effects on the skilled artist...what it does to the unskilled artist I can't say, having never been one. But I have seen the inept artist spending most of their time justifying their ineptitude with the invention of romantic myths. They spend most of their time coming up with excuses for not doing things rather than screwing up the gumption it takes to learn how to draw anything they can see...and paint it. Yes, it's difficult but it can be done...and at any age.
I don't have much in common with Rembrandt but I do have this in common as a fellow working pro...I like the life style that making art affords me, and if I learn of a device or material that will allow me to produce one more sale per year, I'm going for it. If I learn of a device or material that can keep me ahead of my competition, I'm getting it. If my competition is using a device to their advantage, I'm getting a better one.
Notice in the above paragraph that I never mentioned truth, honesty of vision or a set of rules. Maybe I've been a pro too long and the romantic notions of art making have long since faded, but understand this. I can draw, unaided, with the best of them, but I have and will use optical devices such as a camera lucida, an opaque projector, camera, slide projector, computer printout or whatever serves my vision of what has to be done. As a working pro, the only important thing is what goes onto the canvas, not how it got there.
Is Shakespeare great because he wrote with an ink quill rather than a word processor? Will you write like Shakespeare if you use a quill? What this silly argument does is foster ineptitude rather than forcing hobbyists and wannabes to face the reality in the old joke...
"Sir, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?"
"Practice, man, Practice."
Unless you've been there and done it...really done it, you're just talking to justify your not being able to do it. Learn to draw first. Then learn to use a camera lucida and you'll end up agreeing with Hockney...it's obvious except to the partially blind.