L’apport de la simulation numérique de l’éclairage pour l’analyse des ombres projetées en peinture. Une application à la Dibutade de Joseph Benoît Suvée (1791)

• Published in: Perspective (Paris. 2006) Vol. 1; pp. 173 - 198
• Main Authors: Sophie Raux, Christophe Renaud, François Rousselle, Samuel Delepoulle
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: French
• Published: Institut national d'histoire de l'art 01.06.2023
• Subjects: genetics; interpretation; light; method; shadow
• ISSN: 1777-7852; 2269-7721
• DOI: 10.4000/perspective.29536

At the crossroads of art history and computer technology, this article aims to show the heuristic potential that lighting simulation tools hold for a renewal of the study of lighting, in terms of both material aspects and representations. The authors base their analysis on a study of a painting by Joseph Benoît Suvée, The Invention of Drawing, Dibutades (1791, Bruges, Groeningemuseum), in which shadow is both the subject and the object. The first results of this exploratory research highlight the concordances and discrepancies between the physical reality of the shadows cast and their interpretation by Suvée, in a process that departs from observation and tends toward idealization. This exploration makes it possible, using new avenues, to understand the artist’s visual thinking according to a dual approach founded on both genetics and hermeneutics.