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Hey kids! Free lunch!
A year ago, I blogged about David Hockney’s controversial book — which argues that the secret behind the explosion of realism in the Renaissance was the camera obscura. Hockney thinks the old masters were using cameras obscura to project their subjects onto canvases, and then traced them from life.
But now there’s a rebuttal, from two computer scientists. David Stork and Antonio Criminisi did a close analysis of the chandelier in “Portrait of Arnolfini and His Wife” by Jan van Eyck. Their verdict? Not that realistic, according to The New York Times:
The problem, as Mr. Stork and Mr. Criminisi see it, is that the chandelier in the Arnolfini portrait is hardly painted in perfect perspective. Relying on digital image registration techniques, Mr. Stork and Mr. Criminisi applied projective geometry to one of the arms of the Arnolfini chandelier to see what the others should look like given the various angles that the painter would have seen them from. Then, as Mr. Criminisi described it during a phone interview yesterday, each painted arm was compared with its ideal perspectival projection; they were not identical.
You can read Stork and Criminisi’s paper here online — and check out their way-kewl illustrations showing how the vanishing point for the perspective on the chandelier is slightly off.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map
Should automobile software be open-sourced?
My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”
Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”
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January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A. Certainly.
M. Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A. So it appears to me.
M. Then all are miserable?
A. Every one.
January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM
One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
)
January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM
BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.
January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM
“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)
January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM
I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.
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