Very First Photo Worldwide

Leslie Bohoss · 04-17-2003, 06:35 AM

Hello!

Recently I saw a very interesting broadcast on TV about the grave-cloth of Jesus from Torino (Italy).Dim:4mx1m. (Note: I don't know what the correct translated title of this Sanctuary is.)

After 10 years of investigation: In the opinion of an international team it is the very first photo in world-history. Made by Leonardo da Vinci.
He received the commission from the House Savoy (Milano). The linen-cloth is dated (after Carbon-14) from 1250-1390. He bought this piece and the needed silver-nitrate as photoemulsion, from Arabic businessmen.

He wrote ca. 13,000 side documents in mirror-script ('cause he was left-handed and he wrote with the right-hand 'normal' and a left-hand 'mirrored').

Nothing over this job, but a single noticebook was bought from the Savoy, for their own library, where this piece never appears. They have the only self-portrait from Leonardo also. The team also showed his technique: in Savoy's castle is a room arranged as camera-obscura. They said the cloth is a montage of 3 shots (with Photoshop V.1609

)

First, the body from the front, second, body from behind and the head (probably Leonardo himself).
That explains following:

1.There is a difference in body-height between front and behind ca. 3"

2.The missing neck

3. Important fact, Leonardo was a heretic-type ,against the Church. No fear from the ever-**** in the ****.

4. No pigments found on this cloth. The picture is only on the surface.

5. Must be a very clever guy, and he was a VERY clever guy with some secrets and mystery.

The team produced -- with this old settings and materials -- many (ca.30) experiments with success. Another secret of him is his last picture: John the Baptist. With X-ray and all the other things and methods, you can analyze a picture for brushstrokes, layer, chemicals etc. but at this one, you can see nothing (he said: 'foggy nothing').

No brushstrokes, no layers, only the pigments. Nobody has an idea how did he made it. (How he put the paint on canvas without brushstrokes.)

They showed another thing: Mona Lisa overlayed with the mirrored self-portait of him. I say nothing: Try it in Photoshop.

All this I found very interesting, don't you?
Now I go back to my spaghetti (self-cooked, the one what I can, oh no, popcorn too).

Best wishes,
Leslie.

P.S. I changed my last bad shots on my projects (no more bluish).

Michael Georges · 04-17-2003, 09:58 AM

Leslie:

Sounds like a very interesting documentary! It does not surprise me that Leo may have had a camera obscura as I am pretty sure that he had a drawing of one somewhere in his papers.

BTW: I don't hold too much with the Mona Lisa as a Leonardo self portrait. This is because we have an original source that speaks to the actual commission - Georgio Vassari in his 1557 book "The Lives of the Painters" says of Mona Lisa:

"Lionardo undertook to paint for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa his wife, but having spent four years upon it, left it unfinished. This work now belongs to King Francis of France, and whoever wishes to see how art can imitate nature may learn from this head. Mona Lisa being most beautiful, he used, while he was painting her, to have men to sing and play to her and buffoons to amuse her, to take away that look of melancholy which is so often seen in portraits; and in this of Lionardo's there is a peaceful smile more divine than human."

There is always some controversy over Vassari as to whether or not he "embellished" here and there, but the general facts and dates of other things have shown to be accurate.

Michele Rushworth · 04-17-2003, 11:17 AM

Maybe that's the trick. I'll hire men to sing and buffoons to perform the next time I paint someone from life, to get that Mona Lisa smile.

Then I'll photograph the model with my camera obscura and edit it with Photoshop version 1609 (the one DaVinci used, as Leslie pointed out). Ahhhh.... then I'll be a true master.

Leslie Bohoss · 04-17-2003, 11:53 AM

Hi,

Michele, funny, but it was a very serious documentary, 45 min. It was so interesting that I was angry at myself for not recording this piece.

Michael, they showed other works of him with overlayering (the other famous one: Madonna in the grotto) and the relative long nose and eyebrows and few other things, there are always some likeness. They said the artists (Leo too)
makes (more or less) such little jokes.
Or Italian models are simply all the same.

Other fact is (cloth), the negative from it is a very detailed picture, with beard and hairs. Things that you never see with naked eye on the cloth. Camera obscura explains the height difference very simply: tiny closer to the hole (today: lens) and you have a 'projection error'. What sure not so simply to discover for Leonardo as for us today. But if it is true, hey, he made the first multiple-exposed photo!

If I can record this docu (perhaps a replay), I'll digitalize a few interesting pictures.

Leslie

Michele Rushworth · 04-17-2003, 05:53 PM

Wish I'd seen the documentary. It sounds very interesting!

Leslie Bohoss · 04-23-2003, 07:01 AM

Hi!

Yesterday, I recorded this documentary. If anybody is interested, I posted a few pictures from it. The first one is Mona Lisa with a mirrored Leonardo.

Leslie Bohoss · 04-23-2003, 07:03 AM

The next is made from this team: (very similar to the old shroud).

Leslie Bohoss · 04-23-2003, 07:05 AM

The negative from that.

Leslie Bohoss · 04-23-2003, 07:07 AM

The positive. (Don't forget, this is a piece made by those guys, today.)

Leslie Bohoss · 04-23-2003, 07:10 AM

Last, the camera-obscura room at the castle Savoy in Milano. The team used this room too, only with normal linen and crystalline silver-nitrate and sun.

Ciao,

Leslie