But you can't argue with the image

[austin_dern]

So one of the mathematics department talks today was on optical devices used by Johannes Vermeer. That sounded interesting. It was; but it wasn't a professional giving a talk, it was a student giving her semester research project presentation. She had a naturally interesting topic and discussed it well -- there's evidence Vermeer used a camera obscura-like setup to trace poses, so he could paint with greater perspective and vitality. She even had a neat tabletop demonstration offering the chance to sketch a piggy or a kiwi plush toy.

But! The person I guess was her advisor battered her with questions. The term ``camera obscura'' came under fire as Vermeer seems to have used a window, not a pinhole. Would images end up reversed or inverted? This turned into a classic speaker's death-spiral, far nastier than anything I've seen at thesis defenses. I wanted to give her a hug. Fortunately another faculty member was able to push the inquisition away and she recovered with good poise.

And, as I say, it's an inherently neat subject. We technological types tend to forget that people in the 17th century were at least as clever as we are now, and ingenuity is exciting wherever you find it.

In other news, glancing over Google's new look (I think it's lost pages), I found the new ``Froogle'' shopping pages claimed among recently found items: ``space pen,'' ``soldering gun,'' ``cheesecake,'' ``bagless vacuum,'' and ``peter pan costume.'' There's a joke about a good weekend on FurryMuck in there somewhere.

Trivia: Asteroid number 3568, discovered by M. Laugier at Nice 17 October 1936, is named ASCII, after the famous computer character code. Source: Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Lutz D. Schmadel.

Currently Reading: Indiscretions of Archie, P.G.Wodehouse.

Comments

[mahto.livejournal.com]

Poor girl. It's interesting, though, that this idea has taken hold (http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/17782;jsessionid=aaa9PfnjADKMX6) pretty good. People just don't like to think that the Great Masters might have "cheated" a little to get things right, I guess.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That article's exactly the sort of material discussed in the talk, and the book was one of the key references. I don't see how it's cheating, really, to use a camera obscura (or the like) any more than it is to use (say) a ruler to measure relative distances in a pose, but there is some tendency to want to think one's heroes are able to do it all naturally, with no need for the aids or tools.

That said, I'd be more confident trusting the use of these various tools if there were more physical evidence of them, or contemporary references to lenses and the like being applied.

Still no reason for the adviser to have been so harsh, though. He even challenged the student's claim that linear perspective was a rarity in pre-Renaissance artwork, which I would think most anyone would be willing to accept.

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