Re: also Viola picture

[Roger E. Blumberg]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger E. Blumberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: also Viola picture


>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "rosinfiorini" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 7:59 PM
> Subject: also Viola picture
>
>
> >
> >
> > actually, i made the image paler and enlarges and it becomes apparent
that
> it is simply the way the bridge is drawn (its shadow) that looks like a
dark
> stripe.
> > I'm not very good at drawing with the mouse, but here i enlarged the
image
> and drew the way the bridge actually is shaped (IMHO).. it's here:
> http://perso.wanadoo.fr/raydimitry/imagini/Viola].jpg
> > :)
> > ------------------------------------------
>
>
> Hi Rosinfiorini;
>
> let me just clearify that the problem with the bridge in general,  and the
> way you've connected those dots, is that this artist _knows_ how to draw
> good perspective. If you look at the right side edge of the viol's face,
as
> it drops down the side of instrument, all the well exicuted perspective
and
> geometry of those boxy edges and sides of the middle waist bout, you can
see
> how true this is. Now if you go back the the bridge, if it were all one
> connected piece, it's perspective (in relation to all other prespective on
> the viol) would be way off -- the work of a talented 5 year old perhaps,
but
> not Viti. That rendering would not pass muster, would never get out the
door
> (or on the wall) with Viti's name and reputation attached to it, I
believe.
> So, if  for no other reason, that's why I'm not ready to accept that we're
> looking at one connected piece of bridgework.
>
> In your minds eye, imagine standing a boxed deck of cards or cigarette
pack
> upright on it's long narrow edge on top of  the face of that instrument,
> perpendicular to the face of the viola.
> http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg
>  can you see the kind of perspective it would create, and the kind of
> perspective Viti would have seen? He sees the correct perspective just 2
or
> 3 inches away at the right side of the instrument, so why can't he see it
> for the bridge?
>
> Thanks
> Roger
>

I'm sending these bits below, just because I happened to do a quick check on
the date of Durer's perspective. He published his book in 1525, 20 years or
so after the Viti viol was painted, but he had traveled to Italy to learn
about prespective in the first place, which investigations had been underway
in Italy for quite some time. This is just to point out that the "idea" of
good rendering was very much "in the air", a point of pride, effort, and
study, in Renaissance Italy -- contemporary with Viti.

Roger

http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/durer.html
Durer's Polyhedra
Albrecht Durer, the remarkable German renaissance printmaker (1471-1528),
made an important contribution to the polyhedral literature in his 1525
book, Underweysung der Messung, available in English translation as
Painter's Manual. It was one of the first books to teach the methods of
perspective, and was highly regarded throughout the sixteenth century.
Durer travelled to Italy to learn perspective and wanted to publish the
methods so they were not kept secret among a few artists.  Who he learned
from is not known, but Luca Pacioli is a likely possibility.  Some of the
techniques and illustrations follow very closely the work of Piero della
Francesca.


http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/pacioli.html

Luca Pacioli (1445 - 1514, sometimes "Paciolo") is the central figure in
this painting (by Jacopo de Barbari*, 1495).  Perhaps no other work so
epitomizes the deep Renaissance connection between art and mathematics.
Pacioli (a Franciscan friar, shown in his robes) stands at a table filled
with geometrical tools (slate, chalk, compass, dodecahedron model, etc.),
illustrating a theorem from Euclid, while examining a beautiful glass
rhombicuboctahedron half-filled with water.

Every aspect of the picture has been composed meaningfully, and art
historians have analyzed it at length, yet the figure at right remains a
mystery.  For two rather different conclusions, see the references by M.
Davis (who suspects the figure is a self-portrait of the painter) and N.
MacKinnon (who proposes that the figure is Albrecht Durer---compare Durer's
1498 self-portrait).



http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/piero.html

  Piero della Francesca's Polyhedra
  Piero della Francesca (1410(?) - 1492) was an outstanding 15th century
Renaissance artist, both a mathematician and a painter.  His genius in
developing the new methods of perspective and employing them in his
paintings has withstood the centuries. However, his well-deserved
mathematical reputation was lost and only has been regained in this century.
That loss was largely due to the fact that Pacioli plagarized Piero's major
writings shortly after Piero's death, incorporating them into his published
books without attribution.  For centuries, the mathematical contributions of
Piero were questioned.  However, three of Piero's mathematical manuscripts
were discovered in the early 20th century, and his reputation regained.
  Piero is the first of a series of artists whose geometric explorations
involved the gradual rediscovery of the Archimedean solids.  He rediscovered
the five Archimedean solids which are truncated Platonic solids: the
truncated tetrahedron, truncated octahedron, truncated cube, truncated
dodecahedron, and truncated icosahedron.  These were presumably known to
Archimedes, but that was not known in Piero's time.  In addition, he
rediscovered the cuboctahedron (mentioned by Plato).  These six solids are
employed in new and substantial geometric problems --- calculating the edge
length of the solid given the radius of their circumsphere.





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