Studies on Holographic Anamorphoses: 500 Years after

Abstract

Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus, Vol. 35, verso >a< contains the Anamorphic Sketches of a Child's Head and an Eye (Fig. 1), which dates back to approximately 1485. This drawing is considered to be the oldest documented anamorphosis [1]. The original, on display at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, is much richer in detail than the printed reproduction; using fine lines, Leonardo was able to suggest the hair, a crease in the neck, and the shoulders. This work is best viewed from the right side, with one eye a few centimetres from the paper. This perspective produces a foreshortening; the elongated drawn lines 'shrink' to depict the proportions of a child's head. My ideas about the relationship between holography and anamorphosis did not arise from abstract theories but from experimenting with the first hologram I held in my hands. My first anamorphosis (Fig. 2) was created in 1981, one year before my first holographic work was completed. The small relievo I created arose from my ambition to explore whether an anamorphosis, which is commonly represented on the plane, functions three-dimensionally. In this relievo the face is smaller than the palm of a hand and relatively flat. It therefore produces an effect similar to the one produced by the Leonardo drawing that served as the model. In our process of visual perception we learn to account for extreme foreshortenings and diminutions. For example, at a distance of 20 m a person would appear as tall as the reader's thumb, arm outstretched. In the phenomenology of perception, the brain's compensation is called the effect of constancy of height [2]. In perspective drawing, only one important factor of the complex space-perception calculation is conveyed through a simple system using one or two vanishing points so that the image more closely approximates the subject of our perception. This is the dominant system used in computer graphics to portray space; however, a more realistically convincing picture can be achieved using a more moderate system. Many painters did not use the vanishing-point system of perspective strictly. Anamorphoses are a special case: they represent a deviation from a central projection. From a historical point of view, they could only be created, systemized and applied parallel to the development of the representation of space in drawing and the acceptance of central projection as a norm [3]. During the Renaissance, the ABSTRACT