Re: PG: Hackers and Painters

[Paul Graham <address@hidden>]

--Matt Curtin wrote:
> Steve Dekorte <steve@dekorte.com> writes:
> 
> Is there any documentation about how the collaboration actually worked
> in practice?  Sure, we have no evidence that the great painters worked
> on the same part of a painting, but do we know how much the chief got
> to tell the others to do?  Paul?
> 

I've read a lot of art history, and I have never seen a 
detailed description of how groups worked on paintings.
Most of the evidence, such as it is, is in the paintings 
themselves.

A number of contracts have been preserved, specifying e.g.
that the master had to paint all the heads himself, or in
rare cases the entire painting.  One contract said that
no work could be done on the painting without the master
present.  As far as I know, nothing is known about how 
closely the work of assistants was supervised.  I suspect
the one thing they couldn't change were the outlines
(= interfaces) of the parts they were assigned to work on.

If anyone wants to learn more about how Renaissance paintings 
were made, these are the two best books I know of:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/019282144X/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0300050828/

--pg