LIGHT "Among the studies of natural causes and laws, it is light that most delights its students" Leonardo da Vinci Light was thought of as divine power. Artists must look for light almost as if it is a fine material laid over surfaces, for the way light is reflected from a surface helps to identify the shape and form of objects. |
||||||||||
The Camera Obscura History: The earliest record of the uses of a camera obscura can be found in the writings of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). At about the same period Daniel Barbaro, a Venetian, recommended the camera as an aid to drawing and perspective. He wrote: "Close all shutters and doors until no light enters the camera except through the lens, and opposite hold a piece of paper, which you move forward and backward until the scene appears in the sharpest detail. There on the paper you will see the whole view as it really is, with its distances, its colours and shadows and motion, the clouds, the water twinkling, the birds flying. By holding the paper steady you can trace the whole perspective with a pen, shade it and delicately colour it from nature." In the mid sixteenth
century Giovanni Battista della Porta (1538-1615) published what
is believed to be the first account of the possibilities as an aid to
drawing. It is said that he made a huge "camera" in which he
seated his guests, having arranged for a group of actors to perform outside
so that the visitors could observe the images on the wall. The story goes,
however, that the sight of up-side down performing images was too much
for the visitors; they panicked and fled, and Battista was later brought
to court on a charge of sorcery! How does it work? |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Camera obscura (image and object)
|
||||||||||
Artists use of light in the 17th & 18th centuries owed a great deal to experiments paralleled in the science of optics.(For more on the ideas of Art & Science also see The Parallel Analysis of Vision: Modern Art & Science by Glimcher & Vitz) Apart from its use as an entertainment medium, it was quickly taken up by artists for optical guidance- reflecting three dimensional objects onto two-dimensional surfaces and simplifying tonal values. The camera obscura changed the way in which artists viewed their work and even how they thought about it. Art was to become direct representation, rather than indirect recreation. Much attention was paid to recording ordinary domestic scenes whose subject matter was greatly enhanced by accurately observed levels of light. |
||||||||||