ART 104 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Santa Barbara City College, Vitello, Real Image
Document Summary
The perspectiva of the scientist witelo, from around 1270, was historically used as evidence that renaissance scientists, and probably artists, knew of correct predictions. But at the university of missouri, mark smith, a medieval and renaissance optics historian, provides an object lesson on the importance of expert knowledge when judging such a claim. Hockney and falco take witelo as saying that the image is literally floating in space, or somehow being projected outside the mirror. "what witelo really means," says smith, "is that behind the reflective surface the image will be located" The public might have concluded that witelo described a projection of a real image, and is therefore closely related to the method used by hockney. A student of basic optics might have concluded that witelo described a real image in space, not on a screen, and thus related only remotely to the method used by. But after analyzing the latin text, context and contemporary thinking,
