Selected readings on science and art

CS 99D - The Science of Art
Winter Quarter, 1998
Marc Levoy
Handout #3

I have made an attempt to group these readings into categories. Some of these categories correspond to course topics, while others are more general. Many readings fall into more than one category, and their categorization is consequently somewhat arbitrary. The starred entries (*M) and (*A) have been placed on reserve in Meyer library and the Art library, respectively.

History of science

• Boyer, C.B., Merzbach, U.C., A History of Mathematics, second edition, Wiley, 1989.
• Butterfield, H., The Origins of Modern Science, revised edition, The Free Press, 1957.
• Kuhn, T.S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970. (*M)

History of art

• Clark, K., Leonardo Da Vinci, revised by M. Kemp, Penguin Books, 1988.
• Gardner, H., Art Through the Ages, tenth edition, Harcourt Brace, 1996.
• Gombrich, E.H., The Story of Art, sixteenth edition, Phaidon, 1995. (*A)
• Hibbard, H., Michelangelo, second edition, Harper and Row, 1974.
• Vasari, G., Lives of the Artists.

Visual perception

History and relation to art

• Gombrich, E.H., Art and Illusion, Princeton University Press, 1960. (*M)
• Lindberg, D.C., Theories of Vision from Al-Kindl to Kepler, University of Chicago Press, 1976. (*M)
• Park, D., The Fire within the Eye Princeton University Press, 1997.
• Solso, R.L., Cognition and the Visual Arts, The MIT Press, 1994. (*M)

Modern texts

• Gibson, J.J., The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Houghton Mifflon, 1979.
• Wandell, B.A., Foundations of Vision, Sinauer Associates, 1995.

Perspective

History

• Field, J.V., The Invention of Infinity, Oxford University Press, 1997. (*A)
• Gregory, R.L., editor, The Artful Eye, Oxford University Press, 1995. (*M)
• Kemp, M., The Science of Art, Yale University Press, 1990. (*A)

Handbooks

• Cole, A., Perspective, Dorling Kindersley, 1992.
• D'Amelio, J., Perspective Drawing Handbook, Tudor, 1964.
• Montague, J., Basic Perspective Drawing: A Visual Approach, van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993.
• Smith, R., An Introduction to Perspective, Dorling Kindersley, 1995.

Light and shadow

• Baxandall, M., Shadows and Enlightenment, Yale University Press, 1995.
• Gombrich, E.H., Shadows: the Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art, National Gallery Publications, London, 1995.
• Zajonc, A., Catching the Light, Oxford University Press, 1993.

Color

History and relation to art

• Brusatin, M., A History of Colors, translated by R.H.Hopcke and P. Schwartz, Shambhala Publications, 1991.
• Lamb, T. and Bourriau, J., Colour: Art and Science, Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Modern texts

• Minnaert, M.G.J., Light and Color in the Outdoors, translated and revised by L. Seymour, Springer-Verlag, 1993. (*M)
• Nassau, K., The Physics and Chemistry of Color: The Fifteen Causes of Color, Wiley, 1983.
• Wyszecki, G. and Stiles, W.S., Color Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae, second edition, Wiley, 1982.

Scientific illustration

Historical

• Baigrie, B., editor, Picturing Knowledge: Historical and Philosophical Problems Concerning the Use of Art in Science, University of Toronto Press, 1996.
• Baynes, K., Pugh, F., The Art of the Engineer, Lutterworth Press, 1981.
• Ford, B.J., Images of Science: A History of Scientific Illustration, Oxford University Press, 1993.
• Robin, H., The Scientific Image: From Cave to Computer, W.H. Freeman, 1992.
• Stafford, B.M., Artful Science, The MIT Press, 1994.

Modern

• Bertin, J., The Semiology of Graphics, translated by J. Bert, University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.
• Tufte, E.R., The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, 1983.
• Tufte, E.R., Envisioning Information, Graphics Press, 1990.
• Tufte, E.R., Visual Explanations, Graphics Press, 1997.

Writings by artists

• Leonardo Da Vinci, Leonardo on Painting, translated by M. Kemp and M. Walker, Yale University Press, 1989. (*M)
• Leonardo Da Vinci, The Notebooks of Neonardo Da Vinci (two volumes), edited by J.P. Richter, Dover Publications, 1970.
• Leonardo Da Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci on the Human Body, translated by C.D. O'Malley and J.B. de C.M. Saunders, Dover Publications, 1952.

Writings by scientists

• Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, translated by P. Urbach and J. Gibson, Open Court Publishing, 1994.
• Herman von Helmholtz, "The Relation of Optics to Painting", in Science and Culture: popular and philosophical essays, edited by D. Cahan, University of Chicago Press, 1995. (*M)

Art in the age of technology

Philosphical essays

• Benjamin, W., "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," In Illuminations, Harcourt Brace, 1968.
• Hughes, A. and Ranfft, E., eds., Sculpture and Its Reproduction, Reaktion Books, 1997.
• Mumford, L., Art and Technics, Columbia University Press, 1952. (*M)

Technical essays

• Cowan, W., "Rendering with Limited Means," manuscript, 1995.
• Donath, J.S., "Structured Video and the Construction of Space," Proceedings of the IS&T/SPIE Symposium on Electronic Imaging, San Jose, CA, February 1995.
• Mitchell, W.J., The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era, The MIT Press, 1992.

Computer graphics techniques

• Haeberli, P., "Paint By Numbers: Abstract Image Representations," Proc. SIGGRAPH '90, ACM, 1990.
• Meyer, B.J., "Painterly Rendering for Animation," Proc. SIGGRAPH '96, ACM, 1996.
• Salisbury, M.P., Anderson, S.E., Barzel, R., Salesin, D.H., "Interactive Pen-and-Ink Illustration," Proc. SIGGRAPH '94, ACM, 1994.
• Winkenbach, G. and Salesin, D.H., "Computer-Generated Pen-and-Ink Illustration," Proc. SIGGRAPH '94, ACM, 1994.

  There are many papers in the computer graphics literature that relate to the visual arts. Compiling a complete bibliography and critical taxonomy of these papers might be a suitable final project for a student with some previous background in graphics.