Send us a letter

ART AND ARTIFICE

Artist David Hockney’s theory about Early Renaissance artists may be proved to be imperfect and imprecise in some of its details (“Masters of Deception?” November/December), but it is self-evident to those of us who draw. And, to those of us who teach drawing, his argument about the secrecy of knowledge is poignant. Art is poetic and somewhat ambiguous, but its achievement is to find pattern and make meaning of the many, many contradictory facts provided by scientists and engineers.

Irina Gronborg, ’62, MA ’64
Solana Beach, California

Like physicist David Stork, I found Hockney’s theory a very interesting bit of hogwash. I would like to add to Stork’s rebuttals against Hockney’s claim that Van Eyck used a “trick” of optical projection in creating his masterful wedding portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini.

(1) Artists in 15th-century Flanders had no material of sufficiently fine texture, except perhaps silk, to provide a suitable tracing material for the image in the detail and definition required.

(2) Notice the soft light, which is often more defining than glaring sunlight but lacks sufficient intensity for reflective projection.

(3) No material with that degraded light would be sufficiently translucent to permit the artist to stand behind it to make his third-generation reproduction—the tracing—which, then transferred to canvas, would constitute a fourth-generation image much too obscure to result in the exquisite detail of the original painting.

(4) To make an optically perfect glass casting of the correct arc of curvature was impossible then; and had there existed such a crude casting, it would have intro-duced an obvious distortion into the image to be traced, which would have meant correcting for ripples, aberrations in the glass, out-of-arc errors, etc.

(5) Minuscule adjustments to the mirror to attain a perfectly parallel focal-plane relationship to the tracing material would, if not attained, produce a seriously distorted reflection.

(6) Van Eyck might have been farsighted, discerning with extra definition all the feature details. As for the chandelier, that is an artistically licensed invention of wrought gold or bronze that must have fascinated him. I think the bulging mirror is of the same rank, and is a sly hint of trickery only if the critic wishes it so. The Dutch Masters loved material things—cloth, wood, flesh, dogs, family treasures and the like. That love was an ingredient of their reputation as merchants at the time.

(7) When Van Eyck placed his figures—and they were real—he also worked from memory, as all artists do, summoning from his imagination and experience observations of the positions and curvatures of the fingers, the lay and wrap of the clothing, the expressions in the eyes, which he first saw with his naked eyes. The icon-like quality to the faces of the couple is artistic interpretation. Thus the rather porcelain-like face and solemn gravity of the man are “translations,” as it were, not by a fourth-generational image from a dim projection, but out of his creative imagination.

Such detail of visual interpretation could not have been captured except by the naked eye looking directly at the couple. It is absurd to think that he had to resort to a tracing to draft even the first sketch of his two people by a crude artifice whose elements did not exist at the time.

The basic problem posed by Hockney is: absent any substantive proof, how can Van Eyck be so perfect in his reproduction of details? Give genius credit where due.

Charles Miller, ’47
Tujunga, California

‘EXHILARATING’

When I read “Glory Days” (End Note, November/December), I felt almost as if I had written it myself. I came to Stanford in 1961 as a 210-pound hotshot high school football player. I tried out for and walked onto the freshman team. The freshmen were segregated then, with their own coach and schedule of games. I managed to make second string, but after scrimmaging the varsity scrubs, reality hit me and I quit at the end of freshman season. An aspiring surgeon, I knew I would need all my appendages in good working order.

I have been a season-ticket holder since graduating and have attended many games through the years. I became a successful eye surgeon and recently retired. I still make the trip to Palo Alto for at least two games a year, and I can relate perfectly to Dennis Cutshaw’s fanaticism. It isn’t easy being a Stanford fan: most of the crowd seems apathetic, and losses seem to pile up like trash. When we win, however, it is the most exhilarating feeling in the world.

William “Rusty” Gaffney, ’65
Santa Ana, California

hell on rails

Your description of the radio broadcast after Hoover’s election (Century at Stanford, November/December) contained no hint of the difficulty of putting on that broadcast.

On Halloween, a week before the election, a group of rambunctious students took control of the trolley that ran to the campus from the Southern Pacific train station in Palo Alto. The students ousted the motorman-conductor from the trolley and proceeded to run the trolley all over the campus, including rails and sidings that were normally not used. In the process of switching onto one of the unused branches, they somehow managed to get the high-voltage trolley wire in contact with a telephone cable, which blew out most of the phone circuits on the campus.

Since it was anticipated that Hoover would win the election and that there would be a broadcast from the Hoover home, the telephone company had to rig a special circuit around the damaged portion of the telephone cable so that the home could be connected to the nationwide broadcast network.

As a 12-year-old living with my parents only a block and a half from the Hoover home, I remember being without telephone service for nearly two weeks. I don’t remember, however, whether they ever caught the students responsible.

C. Albert Moreno, ’37, Engr. ’40
Camarillo, California

piercing response

Devon Maylie’s Student Voice (November/December) reminded me of my Farm experience with the idea of nose piercing. It was in 1976, when considering such a thing was considerably more rare.

My guitar-playing, rugby-playing Row House roomie had long hair—well, we all did then—but also a lizard tattoo on his ankle and a little earring. It was unusual, especially for a straight male, and he was very macho. (Rugby, remember.) He was a gentle guy, but his brawn and his propensity for partying made me worry sometimes about bothering him with my loudly ticking alarm clock, so I kept it buried in my drawer under the underwear. This is all by way of describing a guy who was tough and tender, older, and above all, very cool.

I don’t remember what, precisely, prompted the idea, but I decided I would like to have my nose pierced. A little ruby stud would be cool, different, eccentric, progressive, I thought. It looked beautiful in the noses of East Asian women and, I hoped, could be inconspicuously removed for visits so that my Mexican grandmother would not be offended.

All I needed was a little push. I asked my roommate what he thought of the idea.

“That,” he said without hesitation, “is the stupidest thing I ever heard of.”

Today, the only holes in my nose are the ones I was born with.

Carlos Alcala, ’79
Sacramento, California

‘IRRESPONSIBLE SENSATIONALISM’

After reading in “Who Killed Jane Stanford?” (September/October) that “someone got away with murder,” I reviewed my own sources, including Stanford: The Story of a University (written in 1959 by English professor Edith R. Mirrielees) and Iron Will: The Life and Letters of Jane Stanford (written in 1940 by Dr. Gunther Nagel). I assume these were available to Dr. Robert Cutler when he wrote the book that was the subject of your article.

According to Professor Mirrielees, “A flurry of investigation [of Jane Stanford’s first strychnine ingestion, in San Francisco] finally determined . . . the bottle had been refilled with cleaning fluid and left in the room by mistake . . . yet Mrs. Stanford, still struggling with a heavy cold, was left disturbed and nervous. In February, at the urging of her doctor, she sailed for Honolulu, and there suddenly died.”

Dr. Nagel’s masterful exposition of Mrs. Stanford’s letters and memoranda in Iron Will reveals much about her character, her friends and colleagues, her hopes and her ideas. While she and David Starr Jordan had differences, I could find no evidence in Iron Will that she was preparing to seek his dismissal from the University.

Omitted from your article is Nagel’s point that when Mrs. Stanford’s organs and body fluids were submitted to a group of leading specialists, headed by Dr. William Ophuls of Cooper Medical College, they found that “the most probable cause of death was chronic myocarditis.” Nagel further recorded that “the government analyst who had reported small amounts of strychnine in the soda Mrs. Stanford had taken and a trace of strychnine in her stomach was shortly afterward dismissed for fraudulent analysis.”

Returning to the episode in San Francisco, Nagel reported that one of the detectives had found that a maid temporarily employed by Mrs. Stanford “was subject to periodic attacks of mania and that the chief subjects of her conversations with her associates turn on her experiences in the houses of the English aristocracy, with numerous accounts of those members of high society who had died from poisoning.’ ”

Another point should be considered. Little attention was given to Mrs. Stanford’s prescription of nux vomica (a strychnine preparation), which she was taking daily. Could this have been the source of strychnine detected in the vomitus and body tissues?

To ascribe her death to murder strikes me as irresponsible sensationalism.

Ralph Schaffarzick, ’43, MD ’46
Auburn, California

What a surprise to learn that the founders of both my alma maters suffered a similar demise. I received my MBA at Rice University in Houston, which was founded and endowed in 1901 after the murder of William Marsh Rice.

Who killed William Rice? That was the ultimate whodunit. It was the butler—in conspiracy with an unscrupulous lawyer. The chairman of the board of the new Rice Institute, Capt. James A. Baker, suspected foul play. In the trials that followed, it was determined that the “new will” presented by the lawyer—effectively gutting the planned endowment of the college—was a forgery.

Caroline Williams Hassell, ’80
Houston, Texas

DISHEARTENING EXPERIMENT

I fear that mere warnings against academic dishonesty are ineffective (“Whose Idea Was That?” September/October). In an experiment with political science students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Bear Braumoeller of Harvard and I found identical rates of plagiarism in term papers submitted by two class sections, one of which had stern warnings and a requirement to submit signed declarations of originality with the paper. By contrast, when students were forewarned that papers would be scanned with plagiarism-detecting software, cheating was negligible.

My strong suspicion is that Stanford’s Honor Code, like Illinois’ clear rules on academic integrity, is not taken very seriously, and that only visible sanctions can concentrate students’ minds.

Brian J. Gaines, MA ’89, PhD ’95
Assistant professor of political science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, Illinois

‘BALKANIZED JUMBLE’

Alumni, I have some good news and bad news on our “Campus Transformed” (September/October). First, the good news. Our venerable Quad, MemChu and other buildings have never looked better. Earthquake-strengthening work has not altered the appearance of these graceful century-old monuments.

The bad news is that former University president Gerhard Casper and architect David Neuman presided over design competitions for new campus buildings with “beautiful contemporary architecture.” The result is a crowd of bizarre, eclectic buildings west of the Quad that desecrates the master plan developed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who was hired in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford.

The article says Casper is confident that “the University’s latest stone age has left the campus pretty much as founders Leland and Jane Stanford would have wished. Still dignified. More beautiful. And as forward-looking as ever.” To judge for yourself, ride to the top of Hoover Tower. Look down on the original Quad design, then let your eyes drift to this balkanized architectural jumble.

Eugene Danaher, MBA ’45, PhD ’46
Tallahassee, Florida

WASHINGTON TYPES?

I’m excited about the appointment of poet Dana Gioia to head the National Endowment for the Arts (Asked and Answered, September/October). But could I gently suggest that Cynthia Haven review NEA history before writing again on the subject?

She comments that Gioia’s “last few predecessors have been fairly low-key, Washington types.” Huh? At least two NEA chairs from the last eight years have been people I would not classify as such: folklorist and musician Bill Ivey; and actress and activist Jane Alexander.

Blair Tindall, MA ’00
Guttenberg, New Jersey

THAT SORORITY STORY

The oft-told tale that a freshman jumped off Hoover Tower in 1941, heartbroken because no sorority would take her, is another Stanford myth in need of debunking (“Have You Heard the One About the Squirrels?” Farm Report, September/October).

A freshman killed herself in the spring of 1941, and she was indeed heartbroken. But it had nothing to do with sororities, and she didn’t leap from Hoover Tower.

I knew her very well. She was in my high school class as well as my Stanford class. She was a lovely, shy girl—the daughter of a very old father by his young, second wife. They lived in Atherton and also had a ranch.

She fell in love with one of the cowboys on the ranch and was planning to elope with him. Her father found out and was outraged. He refused to let her marry the lad—in fact, he fired him and told her she must never see him again. It was because of this that she drove into the Foothills and shot herself.

(name withheld on request)

ALL-CONSUMING ANGER

Letters from readers (September/October) have made much of the health risks and subsequent public costs of obesity (“Living Large,” July/August). But what about the costs to the environment?

Land put into crops is land taken away from wildlife. Water for irrigation and livestock consumption is taken from surface flows and aquifers. Pesticides, fertilizers and feed additives alter the natural chemistry of soil and water. And then there’s the added burden on wastewater systems of dealing with the end results of overeating. The degradation and loss is not just due to increasing human numbers but to patterns of consumption as well.

Diane E. Shepherd, ’72
Kihei, Hawaii

I am struck by the anger and blame directed toward persons who are obese. Readers’ comments have included statements that obese persons are caught up in a form of selfishness reflected in overeating, while persons in developing countries are starving.

Things are not so black and white. Yes, many people are starving—yet the affluent, both “thin” and “fat,” are largely unwilling to share their wealth with marginalized persons, here or abroad. Obese persons are easily singled out to be punished for the collective sins of our society through job discrimination and lack of decent medical care for this serious condition.

Many things can lead to obesity. For instance, I have had weight problems from medications prescribed for a misdiagnosed condition. It is only a reluctant medical community that now admits to the problem of weight gain from certain medications. Nor do I readily lose weight with diet and exercise, whereas the same effort by others results in a fit and lean appearance.

The present-day options for treating obesity are almost nil outside of telling people to have better willpower. (Am I short on willpower? I quit smoking after many years, without any aids.) Moreover, many obese people are the poor, who may not have transportation or funds to go to the gym and don’t get the medical care and support needed to conquer their obesity. Likewise, our workaholic culture virtually eliminates time for exercise and real sleep. Indeed, our increasing national sleep debt may be a factor in the rising obesity rate.

However, I think the biggest issue is that we don’t acknowledge human nature. Our genes give us advantages for surviving famine, including cravings for sweets, fats, salt and other “forbidden” things. In times past, we were generally rather thin, because our environment kept our activity levels up and food availability down. Today, if some of us demonstrate our survival propensity by a greater tendency to put on weight, then we need something to help rev up our metabolic engines and/or to curb our appetites.

Being overweight is never healthy and is undesirable in our culture. However, to rage against obese persons is to rage against ourselves because we cannot admit that we don’t have all the answers.

Bonnie Males, PhD ’79
Lacey, Washington

Letters to the Editor
STANFORD magazine
Arrillaga Alumni Center
326 Galvez Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6105

Or fax to (650) 725-8676; or send us an e-mail. You may also submit your letter online. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and civility.

RETURN TO TOP