Public Talk 7:30 PM, April 21, 2005 Giffels Auditorium, Old Main Dr. Charles M. Falco Chair of Condensed Matter Physics University of Arizona The Science of Optics; The History of Art

Recently, renowned artist David Hockney observed that certain drawings and paintings from as early as the Renaissance seemed almost "photographic" in detail. Following an extensive visual investigation of western art of the past 1000 years, he made the revolutionary claim that artists even of the prominence of van Eyck and Bellini must have used optical aids. However, many art historians insisted there was no supporting evidence for such a remarkable assertion. In this talk I show a wealth of optical evidence for his claim that Hockney and I subsequently discovered during an unusual, and remarkably productive, collaboration between an artist and a scientist. I also discuss the imaging properties of the "mirror lens" (concave mirror), and some of the implications this work has for the history of science as well as the history of art. These discoveries convincingly demonstrate optical instruments were in use by artists, not scientists nearly 200 years earlier than commonly thought possible, and account for the remarkable transformation in the reality of portraits that occurred early in the 15th century. For more information see http://www.optics.arizona.edu/ssd/FAQ.html.

Acknowledgments: This work was done in collaboration with David Hockney. We gratefully acknowledge David Graves (London), Ultan Guilfoyle (Guggenheim), Martin Kemp (Oxford U.), Masud Mansuripur (U. Arizona), Josì⁄asi_(U. Arizona), Richard Schmidt (Los Angeles), and Lawrence Weschler (The New Yorker) for a variety of valuable contributions to our efforts.

Short Bio: Charles Falco is a Professor of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona where he holds the UA Chair of Condensed Matter Physics. He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, has published more than 250 scientific manuscripts (including three with David Hockney), co-edited two books and has seven U.S. patents, most of which are related to various physical properties of thin film materials. However, in addition to his scientific research, in 1998 he was co-recipient of an award from the AICA for his work as co-curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum's "The Art of the Motorcycle" exhibition. With over 2 million visitors thus far in New York, Chicago, Bilbao, and the Guggenheim Las Vegas, it is by far the most successful exhibition of industrial design ever assembled, and is the 5th most attended museum exhibition of any kind. More recently, a collaboration with David Hockney has resulted in widespread coverage in the popular media, including an hour-long BBC special and a segment on CBS '60 Minutes', and numerous invitations to present their discoveries at academic conferences, such as the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop on "Optics, Optical Instruments and Painting: The Hockney-Falco Thesis Revisited" and the "International Conference on Measuring Art: A Scientific Revolution in Art History."