Research Paper on the Camera Obscura
Research Paper on the Camera Obscura, What is a Camera Obscura also known as a pinhole camera?Camera Obscura, May 28, 1997.
Camera Obscura (Latin for a dark room) is a dark box or room with a hole in one end. If the hole is small enough, an inverted image can be seen on the opposite wall. This phenomenon was known by thinkers as early as Aristotle (ca. 300 BC)1. Many sources state that Roger Bacon invented Camera Obscura just before the year 1300. More accurately, Bacon popularized Camera Obscura, using it to view solar eclipses.
The earliest record of the uses of a Camera Obscura can be found in the writings of Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)2. At about the same time, Daniel Barbaro, a Venetian, recommended the Camera Obscura as an aid to drawing and perspective. He wrote:
"Close all shutters and doors until no light enters the camera except through the lense, and opposite hold a piece of paper, which you move forward and backward until the scene appears in the sharpest detail. There on the paper you will see the whole view as it really is, with its distances, its colors and shadows and motion, the clouds, the water twinkling, the birds flying. By holding the paper steady you can trace the whole perspective with a pen, shade it and delicately color it from nature."3
In the mid sixteenth century, Giovanni Battista della Porta (1538-1615) published what is believed to be the first account of the possibility of using Camera Obscura as an aid to drawing. It is said that he made a huge "camera" in which he seated his guests, having arranged for a group of actors to perform outside so that the visitors could observe the images on the wall. The story goes, however, that the sight of the up side down performing actors was too much for the visitors; they panicked and fled, and Battista was later brought to court on a charge of sorcery.4
Few artists ever admitted to using a Camera Obscura to aid in their artistry. Perhaps this is because of the Camera Obscura's link to the occult, or because the artists felt in some way that their artistry was lessened. Several artists are said to have used them; these include Canaletto (1697-1768), Vermeer (1632-1675), Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), and Paul Sandby (1725-1809)5. Though some, including Joshua Reynolds, warned "against the indiscriminate use of the Camera Obscura,"...