Art creation is a mystery

Professor R. Lapucci's recent lectures on Caravaggio reminded me of a superb Goya-esque work by Gudiashvili, Search for Beauty. Rats dressed as surgeons and academics are swarming on a beautiful nude female body. With the sharp help of surgical instruments they are in the process of digging into and dissecting beauty's nude body hoping that in this manner they may find the ultimate source of beauty and art.

Similarly it seems that Professor Lapucci is trying to use graphs, radio-wave grams, infra-red and ultra-violet waves to decipher Caravaggio's art - and ending with the same result as Gudiashvili's rats.

Infra-red and ultra-violet methodology is necessary for restoration purposes of which Professor Lapucci is an international expert, but not to explain the unexplainable process of creation. I am stating this with all due respect to Professor Lapucci. But it is an important point that all academic researchers and restorers should and ought to take this into account.

During my Moscow and Paris studies in Art and the Icon we had to study deeply and experiment with various 'classical' modes of mechanical representations and the camera obscura/pinhole camera was one such method.

It is not possible to use your esteemed paper's space to go into technical detail. Suffice it to say that genius does not need any camera obscura to create, whereas mediocrity is incapable of exploiting same. I would humbly propose that the colour-superimposition philosophy and principles of Icon Art together with the medieval philosophy of Light be integrated in the study of Caravaggio's art.

The process of art creation is one of the most fundamental mysteries. One has to be careful therefore when one is touching this particular mystery since the creation of spectacular assumptions may give a very bizarre impression and possible incorrect conclusions. Academics and researchers have a very heavy responsibility.

Creating spectacular assumptions in all fields reminds me once again that as with the now famous The Da Vinci Code only speculation helps us pay our electricity bills.