Camera Obscura

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camera obscura (Latin: ‘dark chamber’). An apparatus that projects the image of an object or scene onto a sheet of paper or other surface so that the outlines can be traced. It consists of a shuttered box or space with a small hole or lens in one side through which light from a brightly lit scene enters and forms an inverted image on a screen placed opposite the opening. The optical principle is essentially that of the photographic camera. For greater convenience a mirror is sometimes installed, reflecting the image the right way up onto a suitably placed drawing surface. The principle was known as early as Aristotle, but the first account of its use for drawing was published in 1558, in Magia naturalis (1558), a scientific book by Giambattista della Porta, an Italian physician. Various 17th-century painters are known or thought to have used a camera obscura in their work, and by the 18th century it had become a craze. Both amateurs and professionals—among them Canaletto—used it for topographical painting, and there are accounts of an apparatus, somewhat like a sedan chair, inside which an artist could sit and draw, at the same time actuating bellows with his feet to improve the ventilation. More modest versions were easily portable and even pocketable. See also Hockney and Vermeer.

camera obscura (Lat.: ‘dark chamber’). An apparatus that projects the image of an object or scene on to a sheet of paper or other surface so that the outlines can be traced. It consists of a shuttered box or space with a small hole or lens in one side through which light from a brightly lit scene enters and forms an inverted image on a screen placed opposite the opening. The optical principle is essentially that of the photographic camera. For greater convenience a mirror is usually installed, which reflects the image the right way up on to a suitably placed drawing surface. The principle was known as early as Aristotle, but the first account of its use for drawing was published in 1558, in Magia naturalis, a scientific book by Giambattista della Porta, an Italian physician. Various 17th-century painters are known or thought to have used a camera obscura in their work, and by the 18th century it had become a craze. Both amateurs and professionals—among them Canaletto—used it for topographical painting, and there are accounts of an apparatus, somewhat like a sedan chair, inside which an artist could sit and draw, at the same time actuating bellows with his feet to improve the ventilation. More modest versions were easily portable and even pocketable.

cam·er·a ob·scu·ra / əbˈskyoŏrə/ • n. a darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object onto a screen inside. It is important historically in the development of photography. ∎  a small round building with a rotating angled mirror at the apex of the roof, projecting an image of the landscape on to a horizontal surface inside.

camera obscura. Darkened box or chamber into which light is admitted through a double convex lens, thus forming an image of external objects, a view, etc., on a surface placed at the focus of the lens.

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