One of my Christmas presents this year was a huge 5 kilo book on the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi who has attracted a lot of interest the last few decades. He was active in the 1890's and the up to WW1. A good canvas from him is now in the million usd + category. He is best known for his portraits of his wife Ida (often seen from the back) and his plain domestic interiors.
Anyway, the book shows a lot of how the development of both studio and private photography impacted the lives of the cultural elite. For Hammershoi, the choice of motive for his own camera ( and from descriptions of the photos shown in the book, it was probably a 9x12cm camera) often matches the sort of pictures he painted.
This photo hobby was also put to more direct assistance in some of his portraits and land/townscapes.
There is a lot of general "Hammershoi" documentation deposited in public archives, including his private photos. One of these photos is a complete match to one of his most praised works which is the so-called "Engagement" portrait of his coming wife Ida. Now this print is badly exposed and the facial feature are faint, but the whole print has been grided up with a larger grid and a finer grid around the central image. The painting has been examined for a matching grid pattern and there are traces of a grid in areas with thinly applied paint.
I suppose that once the choice of a canvas dimension has been made, a grid has been drawn on the canvas which matches the grid drawn on the 9x12cm photograph. I suppose this was a taught procedure in the art colleges at the time - perhaps, still is?
The Hammershoi engagement/marriage was a very rushed affair, so no time for sittings. Actually, I think the portrait is very succesfull because of the very excellent posing and expression on Ida's face in the photograph.
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