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Of course they weren’t dumb, but having a great understanding of shadows is a far cry from being capable of creating a photo negative. They didn’t even have the
by d_theorist 2y ago
Of course they weren’t dumb, but having a great understanding of shadows is a far cry from being capable of creating a photo negative. They didn’t even have the concept of a photo negative. How would they even have thought to achieve such a thing? And for what purpose?
And, by the way, the image on the shroud is not made of paint, so contemporary proficiency with painting techniques hardly seems relevant.
- codingdave 2y agoWhy would they need the specific concept of a photo negative? A negative is just a reversal of light/dark. They knew of such things. They knew primary colors, too. Painting and mixing colors is not exactly modern -- it has been around for many centuries. Artists practice playing with light and color as basic exercises, and have done so for hundreds if not thousands of years. Switching light and dark is a fairly basic concept to artists, not an innovation that required photography to exist in order to conceptualize it. In the same vein, why would it have to be made of paint? Paint is simply pigment inside a medium. Dyes are also pigment, in different medium, made to soak into and bind with cloth instead of being layered on top. I'm not saying that is how it was created, but I highly doubt that the skills to do so did not exist.
- d_theorist 2y agoWhy would they have done it?
- codingdave 2y agoI have no idea, but that seems completely orthogonal to what technique was used.
- d_theorist 2y agoIt’s extremely relevant to the question, which is what the negative nature of the image has to tell us about the relative probabilities of the two hypotheses (miraculous hypothesis vs fraud hypothesis). In my view, it is a big problem for the fraud hypothesis because you have to explain why and how it was done. At a time when the idea of a photo negative was entirely unknown, and when there are no other examples of negative images, or even any mention of the idea of making such images, why would the fraudsters seize on the idea of making their fraudulent image a negative? There is no record of anybody even recognising that it is a negative until the 19th century. So, it’s not at all what you would expect given the fraud hypothesis. You would expect a straightforward image.
- margalabargala 2y ago> At a time when the idea of a photo negative was entirely unknown It was not called a negative until the 19th century when photography came about, because before that a photo negative wasn't a thing. Before that it was just a "painting with light and dark reversed". > when there are no other examples of negative images, or even any mention of the idea of making such images There are many examples. See woodcuts, for example. The concept of creating the negative of an image was common. > why would the fraudsters seize on the idea of making their fraudulent image a negative? Because they, and the intended consumers of their piece, were not stupid and all were aware of the pattern that a person would leave on a cloth. Presumably it was not more difficult to drape a cloth over a body and observe the staining pattern then than it is today. > You would expect a straightforward image. No, you would expect a straightforward image, because photographs weren't invented until many centuries later, apparently.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoThey inverted the colors because they were creating a painting of an impression of a face on a piece of cloth. If you put a piece of cloth on your face, the parts of the face that touch the cloth are the ones where color would be transferred from your face to the cloth, and which are therefore darker. The parts of the face that are more recessed, like the areas around the eyeballs, would not touch the cloth, and so less or no color would be transferred from the face to the cloth in those areas. In other words, the part of the face that would receive more shadow in a normal image (and would be darker) would receive less pigment in the painting (and would be lighter).
- briffid 2y agoA face impression would be very distorted when moving from a 3D face to a 2D sheet. So it is not an impression.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoI didn't say it was an impression, I said it was a painting of an impression.
- exe34 2y agoyou can ask this for any non- photorealistic art.
- svieira 2y agoIt was not dyed - the fibers that are discolored are discolored only on one side.
- thordenmark 2y agoThey did not know primary colors. They weren't discovered until the 19th century, even then it took another 100 years before they figured out that red blue and yellow are not the primaries.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nonameiguess 2y agoA negative is just an inversion of the intensity of visible signal. It even has a manifestation in common experience. Stare at something for a long time, then look away. A negative will superimpose on whatever you're now looking at it. I can't think of a good reason humans of the past should not have been able to reproduce this kind of effect artistically.
- Tagbert 2y agoThey were very familiar with rubbings where you place paper or canvas on a sculpture or incised surface and rub charcoal on it to capture the image. The result is very much like a negative.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago"being capable of creating a photo negative" You're calling it a photo negative. It's not a photo negative. It's a painting that has shadows and lights inverted. "the image on the shroud is not made of paint" It's made of red paint.
- Fidelix 2y agoNot true at all. No red paint in it. This has been conclusively, scientifically debunked multiple times.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoPlease provide sources.
- dctoedt 2y agoWikipedia's recap indicates compelling evidence of medieval origin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin#Scientific_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin#Scientific_ana...
- svieira 2y agoRed paint that isn't visible under an electron microscope is some pretty advanced paint.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoIt's red ochre.
- tristramb 2y agoIt could be survivorship bias. All the fake shrouds with botched images were recognised as fakes and thrown out long ago. Only this one which happens to look vaguely realistic has been kept.
- briffid 2y agoPlus what must have been lost in 500 years, all photonegative pictures, fragments, descriptions, recipes, any references for such imagery etc. It is very strange that this is the only image that remained. And an image of a nude Jesus from the back. For which no other instance is known anywhere.
- ithkuil 2y agoXylography (woodcut) technique also uses negatives. The technique is ancient in China and it has been attested in 13th century Europe
- gqcwwjtg 2y agoA photo negative in a single color is not a tough concept to stumble upon if you ever carve something to be thin enough to let light through.