Crosscut Tout: The painter's little helper

Charles Falco will lecture on how research in optics changed art history.
Charles Falco will lecture on how research in optics changed art history.

Remember the back-page cartoon ads in comics and popular magazines urging you to "Become an Artist!"? You only needed to buy a simple box like the one the man in the ads had set up to project a pretty girl’s image on his paper while he drew her exact portrait.

Art historians ridiculed artist David Hockney’s hypothesis that Renaissance painters might have achieved the "photographic" accuracy of their great works by secretly tracing the mechanically projected outlines of their subjects. But scientist Charles Falco helped Hockney find strong evidence for his subversive idea. Next Tuesday (Jan. 26) Falco, professor of Physics and Optical Sciences at University of Arizona, speaks about his collaboration with Hockney in "The Science of Optics; The History of Art," part of the UW’s Walker-Ames Lecture Series.

Jan. 26, 6:30 pm. UW Kane Hall, Room 120. Free and open to the public. Reservations have almost filled the event; arrive before 6 pm to score a remaining seat.

  

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