[Nathan Robinson]

Gordon, I edited the URl to reflect the real URL of the photo it linked to when I clicked your link. But I don't think it's what you intended. Please go back to the photo and copy and paste the part that says "Direct link to this photo:"

[Gabriel Lebec]

[Begin paranoid base-covering]
For the record, regardless of the eventual conclusions and findings regarding historical accuracy, etc., I wanted to mention that my earlier statement about the cross being "clearly" the "recurve" shape described is in reference solely to the manner in which the artist rendered it, and solely for that painting.

The reason I restate and clarify this statement is because of Nathan's wording of "the other opinion expressed in this topic" - I wouldn't want people to think that my opinion, for one, is that such a shape is historical, and in fact given the other illustrations I would tend to think that the rendering of the first image was either technically inaccurate or perhaps representative of an unusual exception. It would be interesting to find a physical example of such an exception, though.

I really do NOT know western arms and armor very well, so I'm in no position to make judgments in any such regard - my only judgment thus far was in what a specific painting illustrated.
[End paranoid base-covering]

Sorry about that, I just like to be as clear as possible sometimes and I'm overly wordy. Personally I believe that the artist had the skill to render the original accurately, and that it would depend on how stringently he rendered it to say whether or not the original actually had such a "vertically" curved guard.

[Joachim Nilsson]

[Thomas Laible]

[Thomas Laible]

[Joachim Nilsson]

[Gordon Clark]

[Thomas Laible]

[Joachim Nilsson]

[Nathan Robinson]

I think I'm surprised that a debate was going on, frankly. Since I haven't commented on the illustration, there is no need to defend any of your interpretations of these illustration to me. I, personally, am more interested in the swords that they represent. (Feel free to keep talking about the illustraitons though.. they are interesting for entirely other reasons...)

Anyway, I'm still waiting for some photos of real swords. Illustrations are one thing, but the original poster was asking for information on a real sword based on a given illustration. So far, nobody has posted one and that's why I tried to bring it back to that point. It's an interesting hilt design, but not one I can remember seeing. To me, that's enough reason to be excited to see one. And that was my motivation for asking for them.

Complete side-note, to me, anyway: The understanding of how to render perspective in 2-dimensional 15-16th century art is hit and miss. Look in our historical artwork photo albums for many examples that show very clearly a misunderstanding of the concept, at best, and a complete disregard for it many other times. The examples of portraits that are rendered in "stacked parallel planes" (a simplified method of rendering perspective) are abundant. Many, many examples of artwork from this period show perspective on certain objects, and completely disregard it on other portions of the image. This is often a reflection of an "area of interest" philosphy, but even then, the methods are quite often simplistic when compared to the perspective that reality gets us.

[Sean Flynt]

Another thought to throw in the mix:

The artist David Hockney and other scholars have pointed out that renaissance artists sometimes used the camera obscura, lenses or concave mirrors as an aid in quickly sketching-in reference points and accurately recording perspective. They make the interesting observation that if the artist does this multiple times for multiple objects within the painting and from different positions, the perspective shown can be technically accurate for a given object or objects, but inaccurate in the way the different perspectives relate within the painting. In other words, although we're viewing the scene from a single perspective, the artist/lens may have recorded multiple perspectives. Of particular interest here is that perspective aids also can introduce tell-tale distortion.

If I remember correctly, there is a famous Dürer sketch that shows one of these perspective aids in use (the sketch is in Hockney's book). So, Dürer certainly was familiar with the practice.

Here's a good link related to Hockney's observations:

http://humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=g&p=a&a=i&ID=648

And another author's explanation of Vermeer's Camera
http://www.vermeerscamera.co.uk/reply.htm

[Joachim Nilsson]

[Joachim Nilsson]

[Nathan Robinson]

[Joachim Nilsson]

[Nathan Robinson]

I'm sorry, Joachim.

For what it's worth, I don't think your posts are ramblings... and really, I know ramblings. Ask anybody who knows me how much I ramble.

Anyway. I'm still very interested in this type of hilt because, and I don't know why I feel this way, but I suspect there are some examples of it out there somewhere.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Not only with drawings: It is possible, to photograph an object that curves in more than one axis and depending on the angle chosen and lighting and without the 3 D clues of binocular vision, to end up with a very misleading photograph that gives you an erronious impression of the actual shape of the object.

Now finding a sword that does have a guard that curves back like the painting seems to indicate would be an interesting find as Nathan said, but in this case it seems to me just a case of misleading perspective cues.

As an art teacher said in life drawing class once, loosely quoted: " Yes, the model's arm does take on this weird shape if drawn from this angle but nobody looking at just the drawing will understand what the arm was actually doing and why the fingers seem to be sticking strait out of the elbow with no forearm or hand visible ! "

Anyway, this is the view of someone who can draw and has worked with graphics, photography and corporate video for a few years. ( Don't want to sound pretensious here: But some people can't draw to save their life and I couldn't write music to save mine. )

[Joachim Nilsson]

Well, I've just thumbed through my copy of Oakeshott's "European Arms and Armour" and there isn't any "recurved bows" to be seen. That does not, of course, exclude that such a sword ever existed. But, in hindsight, I might have gotten a bit carried away in the discussion and also the interpretation of art. I apologize for that and heed the input of those that are more experienced in judging art than I. Until a photograph of an actual sword shows up the evidence do seem to point towards an S-curved cross. Which isn't such a bad thing anyway as they are very beautiful. But it would still be very nice to see an actual recurved bow.

[Joachim Nilsson]

[Nathan Robinson]

Like the photos Kirk posted previously, this example doesn't hit the mark either. It's too late and really isn't at all in the right "family" but hey, for those who haven't seen it:


Click for full-sized version