Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM 

Monday, May 20, 2002 / 3:30 PM, Building 8 Auditorium  

Charles M. Falco

ABSTRACT -- Recently, renowned artist David Hockney observed that certain drawings and paintings from as early as the Renaissance seemed almost "photographic" in detail. Following an extensive visual investigation of western art of the past 1000 years, he made the revolutionary claim that artists even of the prominence of van Eyck and Bellini must have used optical aids. However, art historians insisted there was no supporting evidence for such a remarkable assertion. In this talk, I show a wealth of optical evidence for his claim -- evidence that Hockney and I subsequently discovered during an unusual, and remarkably productive, collaboration between an artist and a scientist. I also discuss the unique properties of the "mirror lens" (concave mirror), and some of the implications this work has for the history of science as well as the history of art. These discoveries convincingly demonstrate optical instruments were in use -- by artists, not scientists -- nearly 200 years earlier than previously even thought possible, and account for the remarkable transformation in the reality of portraits that occurred early in the 15th century.

SPEAKER -- Charles Falco is a Professor of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, where he holds the UA Chair of Condensed Matter Physics. He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, has published more than 250 scientific manuscripts (including one in 'Optics and Photonics News' with David Hockney), has co-edited two books, and has seven U.S. patents. In addition to his scientific research, in 1998 he was co-recipient of an award from the AICA for his curatorial work on the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum's 'The Art of the Motorcycle' exhibition. With over 1.5 million visitors thus far in New York, Chicago, Bilbao, and now at the new Guggenheim Las Vegas, it is far the most successful exhibition of pure design ever assembled.