Caravaggio used photographic techniques: researcher

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Source: AFP/YahooNews
by Emmanuelle Andreani

FLORENCE, Italy (AFP) – Italian Renaissance painter Caravaggio used revolutionary optical instruments to "photograph" his models more than 200 years before the invention of the camera, according to a researcher in Florence.

The 16th-century artist celebrated for his dramatic chiaroscuro (light and shadow) paintings mastered "a whole set of techniques that are the basis of photography", Roberta Lapucci told AFP.

Caravaggio worked in a "darkroom" and illuminated his models through a hole in the ceiling, said Lapucci, who teaches at the prestigious Studio Art Centers International in the Tuscan capital.

The image was then projected on a canvas using a lens and a mirror, she said.

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