The Shadow Shroud
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All Images © 2005 N.D. Wilson
Theory & Experiment
While pursuing graduate studies at Liberty University in the year 2000, N. D. Wilson first encountered the Shroud of Turin in a lecture by Dr. Gary Habermas. Using the solution patterns of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories, Wilson attempted to work through a “paradigm shift” in the world of current theories of Shroud forgery. Such theories simultaneously fail to account for the complexity of the image and the simplicity of technique required for a forgery to be believably attributed to a medieval.
The image on the Shroud is dark on a light background. Previous theories had all attempted to explain how linen could be darkened without the use of chemicals, stains, or paints. Wilson wondered if it would be possible to lighten the already dark linen, leaving only a dark image behind. The simplest means of lightening linen, available to all men throughout time, is to bleach it with sunlight. Wilson believed that if an image of a man were painted on glass with a light shade of paint, placed over darker linen, and left beneath the sun, a dark image would be left on a light background. More importantly, he believed a dark and light inversion would take place, creating a photonegative. Wherever light paint had been used, the linen would be shaded from the sun and left dark and unbleached. Wherever the darker shade of linen had been left exposed, the sun would bleach the cloth light. In addition, it was also believed that because the sun would be exposing the linen from approximately one hundred and eighty degrees, a crude three dimensional image would be created.
Several years later he decided to test his theory, so he met with Dr. Scott Minnich, a scientist friend, for advice on structuring the experiment.
Phase I
A line-up of faces would be painted on glass with white paint, placed over linen and exposed beneath the sun for differing periods of time. Different artists and non-artists would paint the faces and various paint thicknesses would be used. The goal for this phase was to select a single painting to be used to produce several images for comparison. A window painted in less than an hour by David Beauchamp, a non-artist, was selected. It initially produced an image while aligned parallel to the sun’s path and exposed for ten days.
Phase II
The Beauchamp painting would expose two additional images. The first image would be exposed perpendicular to the sun’s path. As temperatures had dropped, and the summer was fading, it would be left exposed for fifteen days. The second image would be exposed beneath a stationary sun lamp for approximately 140 hours.
Phase III
All of the images created would be photographed in the studio of Mark Lamoreaux for comparisons of the negatives. The three-dimensionality of a faux-shroud would be compared to that of the Turin Shroud.
Finis
It was found that even a crudely painted piece of glass could produce a photonegative image three-dimensionally encoded onto linen. The images produced by the Beauchamp painting did not match the finesse of the original, but aptly demonstrated the viability of the technique.
Oil paint on glass, produced by David Beauchamp in roughly forty-five minutes while watching stand-up comedy. This painting was the most successful and was used to produce three different images on linen.
The first linen image created by Beauchamp's window, exposed for ten days generally parallel to the sun's path. The linen bears a negative image, dark on light (left), which becomes positive, light on dark (right), in a true photonegative.
The second linen image created by Beauchamp's window, exposed for fifteen days generally perpendicular to the sun's path. The lines are much harder than those in the first image.
The third and final image created by Beauchamp's window, exposed for approximately one hundred and forty hours beneath a sunlamp. The stationary light source created an image flat and scattered.
Beauchamp's parallel shroud (right), and the Turin Shroud (left) both topographically rendered.
The Turin Shroud rendered three-dimensionally. Shabby chic.
The Beauchamp parallel shroud rendered three-dimensionally. Shabbier chic.
This pirate was the first image created by sunlight under painted glass. The extremely successful realism encouraged the Shroud attempts.
N. D. Wilson
Wilson holds an MA from St. John’s College, Annapolis and is the Managing Editor of Credenda/Agenda magazine, a religiously and philosophically Trinitarian cultural journal. He is also a Fellow of Literature at New St. Andrews College, where he teaches a year-long freshman course on Classical Rhetoric, as well as an eight-week seminar on Euclid’s Elements. While pursuing a year of graduate study at Liberty University in 2000, he was first truly introduced to the Shroud of Turin by Dr. Gary Habermas, constructing the Shadow Theory later that same year as a result of one of Habermas’s lectures.
“Father Brown Fakes the Shroud,” Wilson’s article describing both the formulation and testing of the Shadow Theory has been published in Books and Culture, March/April, 2005.
Scott Minnich, Ph.D.
Dr. Minnich is an Associate Professor of Microbiology at the University of Idaho. He did postdoctoral research at both Princeton and Purdue and his current research interests include Y. enterocolitica gene expression and coordinate reciprocal expression of flagellar and virulence genes. His work has also played an important role within the Intelligent Design scientific community.
Dr. Minnich was already familiar with the issues surrounding the Shroud of Turin, when Wilson contacted him about the Shadow Theory. He provided Wilson with essential guidance regarding the structuring of the experiment.