THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

Art Criticism
History of and the
Computer-Generated
Images

JamesElkins ABSTRACT

As thefieldof computer
graphics expands, ittendsto be
taughtina manner thatis increas-
inglyisolated fromthehistory of
In science, engineering and architecture it is of- aspect of my claim-that our ways art.Theauthor showshowcom-
ten said that computer graphics is an aid to visualization: it of thinking about space have also putergraphics canreconnect to
widersourcesof meaning inthree
helps us understand complicated shapes such as enzymes, the been changing. We have been arenas:(1)continuous traditions
trajectories of spacecraft, architecture and paintings. Behind moving awayfrom complexity and spanning Western painting and
this explanation is the notion that "spatialthinking," "visual- toward an ideal of rapid commu- contemporary rendering tech-
ization" and related capacities are more or less given-"hard nication and schematic clarity. niques,(2)linear perspective, and
wired" is the computer term-independently of history or of Our pictures are simpler, both in (3)
(3)drawing.
drawing. The
Thecomparisons
comparisons are
are
usedto demonstrate thatthehis-
the technology in question. Computer graphics only verifies the fine arts and in scientific illus- toryof artis intimately associated
that assumption when it produces calculated facsimiles of the tration. There is a practical rea- withtheexploration of computer-
world. There is truth to this, but I would like to argue that we son for this, since it is no longer assistedimagery, eventhough it
obtain it by ignoring the richer meanings that our computer- necessary to create complicated remains largely absentfromits
networks of lines in order to place pedagogy.
pedagogy.
generated pictures might have.
There are two intertwined components to this notion: one three-dimensional (3D) objects
has to do with history, the other with technology. Computer on flat surfaces (computers and
graphics is inextricably linked to the history of Western pic- photographs do that invisibly). But I do not want to imagine
ture-making. The expressive meanings, artistic strategies and practice as the enigmatic cause of the history of seeing. Artists
conventions of that genre continue to underwrite develop- and illustrators have been interested in avoiding intricate con-
ments in computer graphics, especially when they are not ac- structions in part because the way we imagine space itself has
knowledged. The result, I will suggest, is that we have come to changed. The lumpy, crowded spaces of Western painting
respond to our creations in an especially narrow way, exclud- have been replaced by the sheer, limitless spaces of contempo-
ing historical and expressive meanings or rewriting them as rary graphics.
matters of physics, neurophysiology or personal, ahistorical In each of these themes it is tempting to see a gradual im-
"artisticjudgment."
This would then be a reason to say that our discourse about James Elkins (educator), Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism, School of
the Art Institute of Chicago, 37 S. Wabash, Chicago, IL 60603, U.S.A.
pictures has changed since the advent of computers. I would Received 9 February 1993.
add that the gradual specialization of thinking about pictures
An abbreviated version of this paper was delivered at the joint meeting of the Ameri-
is a larger phenomenon bound up with modernism itself. But can Historical Association and the History of Science Society in Washington, D.C.,
it is also possible to argue-and this is the second, technical chaired by Barbara Stafford, in December 1992.

Fig. 1. Francisco de
Zurbaran, Bodeg6n Camb6,
oil on canvas, 0.5 x 0.8 m,
1633-1640 [24]. (Madrid,
Museo del Prado) Like
other simple, geometric
still lifes, Zurbaran's are
plausible historical ante-
cedents for contemporary
practices in computer
graphics. From Martin
Sebastian Soria, The Paint-
ings of Zurbardn(London:
Phaidon, 1953), Plate 13.

? 1994 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 335-342, 1994 335

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 or lecture with some such disclaimer. In
particular, art historians are wary of the
Fig. 2. Woodrow "high-tech"look of computer-generated
Barfield, Demonstra- images, and they tend to keep awayfrom
tion of Lambert, them for that reason alone. In a sense,
Phong, and Blinn this is a self-fulfilling prophecy: as long as
Rendering. (Cour- the majority of art historians shy away
tesy Woodrow
Barfield) Color from computer art, the historical dis-
maps with varia- course surrounding the new images will
tions on two light remain an impoverished "ghetto" [1].
sources and two Here is the way my prefatory apologia
shadows produce
might sound, if I were presenting this
(a) Lambert, (b) material to art historians:
Phong and (c) Blinn
It is true, I would point out, that any
renderings. The
lighting subroutines new technology seems at first to have an
in contemporary overwhelming, often irrelevant meaning
graphics proceed in that comes from the peculiarities of its
accord with math- medium. When prints first appeared in
ematical models
the fifteenth century, they had such a
and empirical ob-
servation rather different "look" that they were segre-
than with historical gated from more traditional media. The
inquiry. "look" soaks up the nuances that may
also be developing in the nascent me-
dium. Computer graphics look steely,
technological and often nerdy and es-
capist. One rarely sees a computer-gen-
erated image that does not seem to be-
long to some fantasy of childhood or
adolescence. Often the medium does
not seem to have been capable of break-
ing through those associations and be-
ginning to explore more nuanced
meanings. But this is something that
happens to each new technology in
turn, and if we look away on account of
the unpleasant glare of technological
references, we risk missing the develop-
ment of new meanings-and most im-
portantly, we tend to assume that the
technology is contributing something
superficial-such as efficiency-when it
may also be bending artistic purposes in
new directions.
This kind of introduction, which is
routinely necessary to engage art histori-
ans with questions of computer-gener-
ated images, is a sign of the growing
separation between the pedagogy of
technological and traditional media.

IC) VISUALIZATION AND

HISTORICAL PRECEDENT
poverishment of the concept of what a ing prey to the humanist temptation to 'Visualization"has a long history, begin-
picture is. But having said that, I want to decry "illiteracy." Computers are illit- ning with the Platonic Idea and continu-
be careful not to sound as though I am eracy, and that has exhilarating effects ing on through nineteenth-century in-
valuing older pictures over newer ones. for the question of what pictures can be. terest in "visible"geometry [2]. (Here's
The spatial thinking that goes into com- It may not be necessary to defend my an example of a typical nineteenth-cen-
puter-assisted drawing is more rapid and penchant for taking computer graphics tury visualization problem, which re-
less pictorially informed than in previ- seriously and talking about it within the cently surfaced at a scientific confer-
ous centuries, but it is also lucid and wider histories of art; but it is symptom- ence: according to one report, "even
schematic as never before. The ques- atic of the growing disconnection be- professional mathematicians" have a
tions that arise from these differences tween art history and computers that I hard time "seeing" that a tetrahedron-
have to be debated seriously without fall- would ordinarily have to preface an essay a perfect pyramid made of equilateral

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 triangles-can be cut into exactly equal space are normally "enhanced" or "pro- are responding to facts of vision and a
halves by a plane that intersects it in, "of cessed" in one way or another. The common mode of interacting with ob-
all things," a precise square [3].) The crippled Hubble space telescope's pic- jects. Without denying that component,
field currently known as "visualization"is tures are sharpened by "image decon- let me rearrange the question and ask
mostly concerned with computer graph- volution," and often the routines in- what meanings are produced when com-
ics and asks how mathematical and volved in such procedures and their puter graphics takes Western still life as
physical concepts can be rendered realis- resulting textures have more than a its model.
tically [4]. Researchers in this field want passing resemblance to the conventions To begin with, there are questions of
to know how lights reflect off various sur- of abstract painting. In a similar way, ar- propriety. Why is a tabletop, with two
faces, how shadows are produced and, in chitectural drawing finds its way into the diffuse or specular light sources and a
general, how an abstract "object,"which repertoire of computer visualization. neutral matte background, the appro-
typically exists only as equations or raw Amazing depictions being made of the priate arena for imagining such diverse
data, can be made to appear solid. structure of the universe (with its "Great objects as proteins, Buckyballs (new car-
In the great majority of cases, that so- Wall," "filaments"and "bubbles")repre- bon compounds), broken bones, tu-
lidity or realism takes its cues from a re- sent the largest forms ever put into pic- mors, molecular landscapes, dolphin
markably specific model: a tabletop, set tures (excluding, I suppose, some pic- skulls and robotic animations? (I am
against a matte grey backdrop, theatri- tures of God), and they are made naming some of the objects "visualized"
cally lit with a strong diffuse main "spot" possible by a massive accumulation of that way at the 1992 SIGGRAPH com-
and a weaker "fill," sometimes with the data points (here, galaxies) coupled puter conference.) Baroque artists
addition of a specular highlight. It may with the simplest pictorial conventions thought of peaches, bread, flowers, tubs
be because I am an art historian that this (sections, parallel projections)-bor- of butter, knives and flies as still life ob-
nearly universal setup does not seem to rowed, ultimately, from architecture [6]. jects, but they put people and land-
me to be merely a matter of the kind of Even the special qualities of the video scapes in other kinds of pictures. We use
programming that is easiest to manage, screen owe their appearance largely to the conventions of still life far more
of the a priori facts of vision or of the the past. Large rectangular pixels, a widely, leading to moments that seem
empirical study of lights and shadows. It trademark of computer illustration, are pictorially inappropriate by historical
reminds me rather insistently of a spe- arranged and printed in ways that are standards.
cific genre of Western painting-the still derived from the history of painting- Beyond these questions, there are mat-
life (Fig. 1). Like Western still lifes from especially from cubism. ters of motivation. Why would we want a
the late Renaissance onward, these com- These topics call for extended investi- molecule to look like a balloon animal?
puter-graphics images rely on a short list gations, and they are more specific than Why would we want the inside of the
of sturdy conventions: (1) a diad or triad the wider points I want to make here. brain to look like cellophane (Fig. 3)
of light sources arranged, in accordance Despite these and other connections, I [7]? Why is it best to think of atomic-
with an academic regimen first devel- would say that still life remains the prin- scale phenomena such as the "Fermisur-
oped in the fifteenth century, to produce cipal model for most of what happens in faces" of superconducting "Buckminster-
lights, shades, highlights and reflected computer graphics. This can only seem fullerenes"-which have no appearance
lights (lumen, umbra,and splendor,in the insignificant if we say that both Western whatsoever, since they are comprised of
original terms); (2) a contrast between still life and modern computer graphics parts that are shorter than the wave-
diffuse light and specular highlights
(first codified by Leonardo da Vinci);
(3) a theatrical setting with darkened Fig. 3. Phil Mercurio, Human Brain, 1992. SIGGRAPH '92 stereo slide set (No. 37/38)
[25]. (Visullizstion: Phil Mercurio, Neurosciences Institute; data: Robert B. Livingston,
backdrop; and (4) organic forms playing University of California, San Diego.) Translucent sheets not only serve scientific ends, but
against geometric surfaces. People who also partake in an aesthetic of painless transparence shared by Baroque artists (see Fig. 4).
work in visualization speak about these
same terms, using their modern near-
equivalents. But the question is always
why the illusion works. Why do we per-
ceive "Phong"rendering of light as more
realistic than "Blinn"or "Lambert"(Fig.
2)? The answer may not be purely neuro-
logical or neurophysiological; it may also
be historical.
I should say in passing that still life is
not the only genre of painting that in-
forms computer graphics. There are re-
current disputes at the National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration
(NASA) because of planetary scientists'
habitual use of color enhancement and
vertical exaggeration of planetary topog-
raphy [5]. It might be argued in this
connection that they want to remake the
strange, hard-to-see images from space
into familiar landscapes. Images from

Elkins, Art History and ... Computer-Generated Images 337

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lengths of visible light-as yellow and ies that are deliquesced into shimmer- Even images that seem largely deter-
purple rubber sheets (Color Plate A No. ing veils, encompassing both Tiepolo's mined by mathematics have their share
2) [8]? Are these images that simply watery washes (Fig. 4) and the iridescent of history. In fractal geometry, math-
make visible something that was invis- mylar of Phil Mercurio's cerebral tissues ematics determines only the forms and
ible? Or are we responding to a desire to (see Fig. 3). Or we might compare the contours of images. Their colors are up
see forms that are clear, solid and suit- dense, almost sticky surfaces of a vertical to the individual programmer, and the
ably "enhanced"?What about things that section through a mummy's head (Fig. fact that they are universally high-
are patched, soiled, ambiguous, dusky 5) [9] to Rembrandt's tacky pigments chroma, or "metallic," cannot be ex-
and dirty-that is, what about the great (Fig. 6). Choices of textures, reflected plained only by reference to the con-
majorityof pictured forms from the past? lights and colors (or, to put these into figuration of computer "palettes" or to
In computer graphics, the rendering of computer language: "texture mapping," the requirements of efficient communi-
mottled textures is a special problem rendering routines, reflection models, cation of information. The color choices
called the "dirtyold couch problem." But radiosity and color palettes) for bodily come from two sources: the bright, hal-
it may be that there is more here than tissues each have psychological mean- lucinatory "Day-Glo"colors of the 1960s
meets the eye. We may be solving prob- ing. Some transparent renderings trans- and 1970s, and the equally garish colors
lems not only because it is simpler to do parently repress the body's horrific na- of fin-de-siecle decadent advertising art
so, but because we want to. These are ture, and some garish hues exaggerate and kitsch, which is still visible on the
matters of motivation-of expressive the body's meaty colors. Many computer covers of pulp paperbacks. (I am think-
meaning-as soon as we stop taking ei- "sections"of living patients seem to deny ing of the science fiction covers showing
ther computing ease or the neurophysi- the ancient opposition of inside and exaggerated images of young women-
ology of vision as necessary and sufficient outside and the barrier of pain between "space babes"-wrapped in rags and lit
explanations of software routines. the two [10]. by yellow, green and blue moons.) Con-
Motivation and meaning are easier to Computer graphics is deeply con- versely, artists who work with commer-
address in the case of the human body. nected to the history of Western paint- cial paint software often disdain these
The body is never simply "imaged" and ing and, by restricting analysis to techni- colors without investigating what it
no electronic cut is entirely painless. If a cal points, researchers often fail to see means to work from some rejected aes-
body is represented with hard, rubber- how expressive meaning and the com- thetic and toward another-particularly
oid surfaces, and a living subject with munication of data go hand in hand. when that other is, itself, derived from
leather or plastic-wrap membranes, There is discussion of "artisticqualities," certain traditions of painting. Nine-
those choices are as deeply expressive the "impression" of a picture and espe- teenth-century artists had an analogous
as, say, Pinturicchio's wooden manne- cially its "aesthetics,"but I would suggest problem when they tried to transmute
quins or Ingres's soft, waxen fingers. that these terms are inappropriate sub- the first commercially available pig-
There are many parallels to be explored stitutes for meanings that have devel- ments into the colors they imagined.
here. There is an entire history of bod- oped historically. There is an interesting contrast, in other
words, between the dry, scientific litera-
ture on fractals and the particular artis-
tic sources it utilizes. The meanings of
kitsch, fantasy art and pop art are
Fig.4. Tiepolo, The bundled into terms such as "aesthetics"
Courseof theSun's and addressed as matters of personal
Chariotthroughthe "artistic"choice outside of history [11].
SkiesInhabited bythe In that
Olympian Godsand way, historically specific but
Surrounded bythe unanalyzed preferences in pictures (for
Creatures of theEarth the commercial colors of pop art or the
andtheAnimalsSym- scenes of fantasy and escape codified in
bolizingtheConti- late romanticism) come to be seen as
nents,detail of a natural or universal and therefore ex-
figurepresumedto
be the goddess pressively unproblematic.
Before we leave this topic, I might
Thetis, fresco, 22 x
5.4 m, 1740 [26]. add that there are historical parallels
Tiepolo and other with another great technological revo-
Baroque painters lution, the invention of the camera.
explored the same Like the camera, the computer has
aesthetic of trans- been adumbrated in previous technol-
parence that serves
contemporary imag- ogy: in the case of the camera, the cam-
era obscura, camera lucida and micro-
ing (see Fig. 3).
From Antonio scope were essential progenitors; in the
Morossi, A Complete case of the computer, I would suggest
Catalogue of thePaint- that the relevant precursors were the
ingsof G.B.Tiepolo conventions of technical, engineering
(London: Phaidon, and perspective drawing. Both inven-
1964) Fig. 264.
tions were entwined with contempora-
neous experiments in the visual arts: in
the case of photography, there was the

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 ing tools and terms borrowed, ulti-
mately, from Euclid. In mathematics
there are Euclidean spaces, projective
spaces, four- and n-dimensional spaces,
and spaces with fractional dimension
(two-and-a-half dimensional space, for
example). Currently, topology is the site
of most explorations into new spaces. To
name a few from a recent issue of Math-
ematical Abstracts there are nearness
spaces, arcwise-connected metric spaces,
G-spaces, semistratifiable spaces,
nonseparable spaces and dispersed
spaces. But most of these are not
visualizable spaces; they are not available
for spatial thinking. With some unim-
portant exceptions, they are not drawn
at all [ 13]. Instead, they are sets of prop-
Fig. 6. Rembrandt, Portrait of a Fair-Headed
erties that have borrowed the word Man, detail, oil on canvas, 108 x 93 cm,
Fig. 5. Karl Heinz Hohne, CrossSectionof a "space."To all of these we would have to 1667 [28]. (Melbourne, National Gallery of
Mummy'sHead, 1992. SIGGRAPH '92 stereo add the practical infinity of spaces Victoria) Rembrandt's visceral, "waxy" tex-
slide set (No. 23/24) [27]. (Courtesy Karl found in artworks, from the flattened tures evoke the possibility of sensation and
Hohne, Institut fur Mathematik und pain in ways analogous to some texture-
spaces of Swedish boundary stones to
Datenverarbeitung, Universitiits-Krakenhaus the still inadequately described "facets" mapped surfaces (compare with Fig. 5).
Eppendorf, Hamburg.) A number of recent From Thomas Bodkin, RembrandtPaintings
medical images move away from the "pain- of cubism. (London: Collins, 1948) Plate 81.
less" sectioned body and begin to represent Out of this smorgasbord, computer
solid tissues and specific textures. graphics has chosen to represent only
two kinds of space: those determined by
English watercolor tradition, Italian perspective and by parallel projection.
view painters and the entire aesthetic of Of the two pictorial strategies, perspec-
the picturesque, which had such strong
influence on what a photograph should
look like [12]; in the case of computers,
there was fantasy art, modernist archi-
tectural rendering, and movements
Fig. 7. Leon Battista
such as minimalism. Alberti, camerated
(transverse) vaults
and metal tie-beams,
COMPUTERS AND CONCEPTS engraving, 8 x 10 in,
OF SPACE 1726 [29]. The limit-
less perspective grid
These historical connections might be is only indirectly a
understood as evidence that our con-
heritage of Renais- Y?r"i

cepts of space have remained reasonably sance perspective.

constant, even while our ways of inter- Sixteenth-century 6

perspectivists tended . :
preting pictures have changed. But I do
not think that is entirely the case. I also not to emphasize the
sense of infinity so
want to explore some ways that both pic-
central to contempo-
tures and the space they posit have al-
rary virtual reality
tered along with the development of and other computer
computers. imaging.
The twentieth century has seen an ex-
ponential rise in the literature on space,
so much so that it would require a com-
pact monograph just to define the kinds
of space that have proliferated in psy-
chology, philosophy, physiology, art his-
tory and art practice. There is objective
space and subjective space, ideal space,
imaginary space, surveyor's space, ki-
netic space, psychological space and psy-
chophysiological space. There are meta-
phorical spaces, such as legal space,
institutional space and social space.
Each of these has been investigated us-

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 ground and middleground occurs in 3D visor and steps up to a machine
paintings when painters who should hanging from the ceiling. He thinks he
have "knownbetter" exaggerate the first sees a molecule and tries to edge closer
few rows of transversals and draw the to it and "dock"-that is, chemically
others to scale. Other paintings preserve bond. The atomic forces sometimes re-
the correct diminution but distinguish pel him and sometimes draw him in.
between foreground and middleground (And I might note in passing that this
by a step or a change in pattern. In still particular example also follows the still-
other instances, the pavement is a fore- life format.) Eventually, these machines
ground object and begins with an in- might be used to guide microscopic ro-
complete row of squares, as if to invite bots ("telenanorobots") through other
the viewer to imagine himself or herself machines [20]. Though these possibili-
standing on the same pavement. In ties each have scientific meaning, they
short: Renaissance artists conceived of also introduce perspective as an unlim-
the receding checkerboard as a divided ited escapist fantasy: a characteristically
object, with a variety of fore-, middle-, modern meaning.
Fig. 8. A.J. Hanson, Perspectiveof the Cubic and backgrounds. For the most part, our "space"is genu-
IntegerLattice [30]. The notion that space is In computer graphics, on the other inely infinite, isotropic, homogeneous
infinite, isotropic and homogenous is a hand, the checkerboard pavement is and purely Euclidean. It is not acciden-
modern emphasis and is only intermittently
usually potentially infinite, enveloping tal that in the history of science those
connected to the earlier history of Western
the viewer and extending far into the qualities were first used to define
perspective images.
distance. Even when it is cut in front and "space"in the late nineteenth century,
in back, as is necessary in order to show when the kinds of realism and empiri-
tive remains preeminent [14]. Renais- medium-size objects, there is often no cism that inform contemporary scien-
sance perspective entails a sense of ho- sense of a boundary between the three tific visualization were being developed.
mogeneous space identical to the sense regions; instead there are arbitrary, un- Before that, there was no call to define
evoked by modern techniques and pro- marked limits [16]. (The pavement space so strictly,or to insist on its bound-
jection routines in computer software. might disappear at a preset distance, less self-similarity.
But there is a quality of the Renaissance when it falls outside the "clipping win-
checkerboard pavement that speaks dow.") Contemporary computer artists
NEW MEDIA: NEW ART?
against our imagining it as a map of and scientists make a point of emphasiz-
nearly infinite Euclidean space, as is im- ing the infinite, homogeneous and iso- Having sketched these two points regard-
plied in our plans and elevations [15]. In tropic qualities of rational space that ing the historical components of com-
practice, Alberti's construction did not have been around since the beginning. puter graphics, I want to close with a
produce grid lines very far into the dis- Space itself appears in our pictures as an quick look at another major arena in the
tance (Fig. 7) (in this example, there are infinite volume, alwayspotentially empty development of computer-assistedspatial
two oblique ground lines rather than (Fig. 8) [17]. Is it unfair to point out thinking: the work that is being done by
Alberti's single horizontal ground line). that the few "photorealist" computer creative artists. At the beginning of this
Alberti did not give instructions for ex- spaces that have a foreground, middle article I asserted that computer graphics
tending the pavement, although we may ground and background are reconstruc- programs are often assumed to be simple
certainly assume he knew how it could be tions of existing paintings, and that aids in the visualization of space. Those
done. It is difficult to continue transver- more purely fictive scenes are typically who teach creative art on the computer,
sals into deep distance using Alberti's unbalanced, unlimited, or oblique views on the other hand, also say that the com-
method. The Albertian pavement, in ef- [18]? Computer graphics sometimes re- puter is "coming into its own," develop-
fect, appears to be a kind of combined sponds to a fuller repertoire of picture- ing into a new medium with its own rules
foreground and middleground, without making conventions, but that was a pos- that will be comparable in importance,
anything beyond it. In addition, Alberti's sibility that was also tempting for the independence and expressive depth to
construction does not include a horizon first decades of photography [19]. the strategies and possibilities of, say,
line, and horizon lines appear only inter- Virtual reality may eventually change painting, marble sculpture, film,
mittently in contemporaneous accounts. this predilection. The 3D visor, "magic printmaking or any of the other media
This tallies well with Renaissance paint- glove" and "force-feedback puck" that that are taught independently of one an-
ings, since they normally show us objects scientists use to simulate environments other [21]. These two concepts of the
and people only at a reasonable distance, bring back some of the Renaissance nature of computers generally exist side
after which either the squares give way to ideas that things have solidity and by side and are frequently in direct com-
featureless pavement or open ground, or weight and that space can be crowded petition with one another. This contra-
something else intervenes. and hard to move through, for instance diction is a fundamental determinant of
Even more interesting is the distinc- in simulated kitchens or battle environ- the teaching and development of com-
tion within the pavement itself between ments. But at the moment, those tech- puter graphics. Even as programmers,
foreground and middle ground. nologies are also being used to fuel fan- engineers, scientists and architects use
Alberti's checkerboard has a foreground tasies that I would link with a sense of computers to automaticallyvisualize diffi-
because of the simple necessity of start- unimpeded space. Molecular scientists cult objects, artists treat them as if they
ing somewhere (with a "ground line") use force-feedback pucks to get a feel were in the process of developing the
and constructing the checkerboard on for how one molecule might "dock"with computer's intrinsic or essential nature,
top of it. The distinction between fore- another (Fig. 9): a scientist puts on the potential and properties. Departments of

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computer graphics in art schools and cre- (sometimes software allows for multiple become ramified, like a family tree.
ative computer-graphics instruction in "undos," so that the artist can retract This, together with the ease of "cutting
general are frequently underwritten by four or more successive marks). It can and pasting," prompts artists to make
some version of this claim. But, in my ex- seem that the undo function and the pictures that are composites of many
perience, it is still far from clear what stainless overpainting Hockney de- different versions of themselves. Here I
these intrinsic properties might be. Most scribed are techniques new to art. But it would make two observations: first, it
of the things that happen differently on seems to me that we are still talking seems that this has been a practical pos-
computers are simply a matter of in- about speed and perfection, rather than sibility since photography, though not
creased efficiency and ease. Lines are ef- something entirely new. The same re- as easy; and second, there is still the
fortlessly straight and even, there are no tractions and opacities are possible in oil problem of saying how pictures made
ink spills, massive calculations can be or tempera if the artist has a little more in this fashion differ from those made
done instantly, and it is possible to pro- patience. Knowing there is an undo in a more ordinary, linear way.
duce stepless gradations of hue and function lets an artist work faster, more Let me close with a single example
chroma. Entire pictures can be rapidly freely and more carelessly; but in com- that seems to me both intriguing and
redrawn to new line widths, "paintstyles" parison to, say, German Expressionism characteristic. Computer graphics draw-
and color specifications. or sumi painting, how are we to say what ing pads are the only example I know of
But these are things that could have effects the undo function has? Can we in the entire history of art in which the
been done before computers, though tell a picture done by a expressionist hand moves in one place and the draw-
they would have taken longer. Exactly painter from a computer-assisted image ing appears in another (i.e. on the
what do computers contribute? The art- whose spontaneity derives from the lib- screen) [22]. Students who learn to
ist David Hockney once experimented eral use of the undo function? draw in this way, however, speak about
with a computer "paint program," but It has been suggested that computer "mastering" the technique: they work
had only one observation when he was graphics is different because an artist around it rather than probing it to find
finished: he remarked that it was pos- can "save" a picture at a certain stage what it might be able to give them that
sible to cover a blue field with a red and then, after making a series of centuries of normal hand-eye coordina-
stroke on a computer and entirely efface changes, return to the intermediate tion could not.
the blue. This is related to the "undo" stage and begin again in a different di- It is not easy, I think, to point to some-
function that most graphics software has rection. The versions of a picture can thing in studio practice that is different
from painting in kind rather than in de-
gree. This is an important complement to
my general thesis that the earlier history
of painting is continuous with computer-
Fig. 9. A researcher assisted drawing and painting. The ex-
at the Universityof ample of drawing instruction helps us re-
North Carolina at member that a technological innovation
Chapel Hill, De- does not usually or automatically give us
^ partment of Com- another way of producing pictures-in-
? $. * wputer Science, uses
a head-mounted dis- stead, it relies on strategies of picture-
play and force-feed- making that are in the air, from over-
back ARM to painting to the conventions of still life
explore a graphite [23]. It also reminds us that even though
surface at atomic a new technology may introduce genuine
resolution with a
changes in the way we think about pic-
scanning-tunneling
microscope. tures, in the great majorityof cases it will
(Photo: Alex Treml. give us something old in the guise of
Courtesy of Linda something new. In all these cases, the his-
Houseman.) Even tory of art is a fitting context and carrierof
in scientific applica-
meaning for explorations that are often
tions, virtual reality seen as ahistorical or dependent on per-
retains and utilizes
the aesthetic of es-
sonal "skill"or "aesthetic."
_ cape, whose histori-
cal roots and References and Notes
:- :,, :.:. pictorial parallels 1. The term "ghetto" is from Margaret Benyon, "Do
lie in romanticism. We Need an Aesthetics of Holography?" Leonardo
25, No. 5, 415 (1990).
2. Erwin Panofskv's Idea: A Concept in Art Theory is
still the place to begin. See further Howard
Stein,"Logos, Logic, and Logistike: Some Philo-
sophical Remarks on [the] Nineteenth-Century
Transformation of Mathematics," in Herbert Feigl,
ed., Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 11,
History and Philosophy of Modern Mathematics (Minne-
apolis, MN: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1988) pp.
252ff. Some interest in visualization has taken its
methods from scientific empiricism, but a great
deal more has been concerned with the proper
form of Kant's claim that there is an a priori intu-

Elkins, Art History anld ... Computer-Generated Images 341

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ition of the three Euclidean axes. Bertrand 10. See Michael Halle et al., magnetic resonance 20. R.L. Hollis, S. Salcudean, and D.W. Abraham,
Russell's Foundationsof Geometry, an early work, con- imaging (MRI) of radiation treatment probe simu- Towarda TelenanoroboticManipulation Systemwith
cerns replacing Euclidean geometry with projective lation with isodose contours, 1992 SIGGRAPHste- Atomic Scale Force Feedbackand Motion Resolution
geometry as the basis of intuition. Rudolf reo slide set (No. 15/16). (YorktownHeights, NY:IBM, 1990) cited in Howard
Luneburg's MathematicalAnalysisof BinocularVision Rheingold, VirtualReality(New York, 1991).
(Princeton, 1947) posits a "personal constant" K 11. This is explored in my essay "The Drunken Con-
such that each individual might experience the versation of Chaos and Painting," M/E/A/N/I/N/G 21. See for example Joan Truckenbrod, "A New
world in a slightly different way: my space may be a 12 (1992) pp. 55-60. Language for Artistic Expression: The Electronic
little more Euclidean, yours may be tinged with Arts Landscape," ElectronicArt supplemental issue
12. Peter Galassi, BeforePhotography:
Painting and the of Leonardo(1988) pp. 99-102.
Lobachevskiian transgressions.
Invention of Photography (New York: Museum of
3. Barry Cipra, "Cross-Disciplinary Artists Know Modern Art, 1981). 22. In discussions, it has been proposed that panto-
Good Math When They See It... ," Science257 (7 graphs and mechanical perspective apparatuses
13. W. Leitzmann, Visual Topology,M. Bruckheimer,
August 1992) p. 748. Another puzzle is to visualize might also be examples. But there, the operator
how a cube, when rotated around an axis that trans. (London: Chatto & Windus, 1965) 11-15. does not have to watch the drawing develop, since
"Problems of representation" are explored here, she is only tracing something that has already been
passes through two opposite corners, can look the but only as far as questions of overlapping lines and
same every one-third rotation. drawn (a pre-existing sketch or scale drawing).
schematic trees.
4. See R.M. Friedhoff and T.W. Benzon, The Second 23. This implies a certain pedagogic prescription. If
14. The relation between the two is explored at
ComputerRevolution:Visualization(New York, 1989), these instances can be generalized, they would sug-
and KA. Frenkel,"The Art and Science of Visualiz- length in my "Poetics of Perspective," forthcoming gest that instruction in computer graphics should
at the time of writing from Cornell Univ. Press
ing Data," Communicationsof theAssociationsfor Com- largely be done by painters, historians and critics,
puting Machinery31, No. 2, 111-121 (1988). Further (1994). with computer graphics experts providing techni-
references are in Richard Wright, "Computer cal advice. In my opinion the staff in computer labs
15. For an alternate account, see Hubert Damisch,
Graphics as Allegorical Knowledge: Electronic Im- and "Artand Technology" departments should not
L'Originede la perspective(Paris, 1987), forthcoming
agery in the Sciences," Digital Image-Digital Cinema in translation from MIT Press. critique their students' work. This should obtain
SIGGRAPH'90 Art Show Catalog, Supplemental Is- until the graphics experts can substantiate their
sue of Leonardo(1990) pp. 65-73. 16. See Robert Minsk et al., pictures of an atomic claim to be teaching a new medium.
5. Richard A. Kerr, "Do NASA Images Create Fan- force microscope pulling up from a lubricated sur-
24. From Jose Maria Carrascal Munoz, Francisco
tastic Voyages?" Science 255 (27 March 1992) p. face, 1992 SIGGRAPHstereo slide set (No. 67/68). Zurbardn(Madrid: Ediciones Giner, 1973) p. 103.
1637; and Richard Mark Friedhoff and William 17. Perspective view of a cube from AJ. Hanson,
Benzon, The Second ComputerRevolution: Visualiza- 25. Slide sets and conference proceedings may be
P.A. Heng, and B.C. Kaplan, "Techniques for Visu-
tion (New York:Abrams, 1989). ordered from ACM SIGGRAPH, 11 West 42nd
alizing Fermat's Last Theorem: A Case Study," in Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10036.
6. Faye Flam, "In Search of a New Cosmic Blue- Arie Kaufman, ed., Visualization'90, Proceedings of
the IEEE Computer Society and SIGGRAPH (Los
print," Science254 (22 November 1991) pp. 1106- 26. From Paolo d'Ancona, Tiepolo in Milan, the
1108; and Margaret J. Geller and John P. Alamos, NM: IEEE Computer Society Press, 1990) Palazzo ClericiFrescoes,L. Krasnik, trans. (Milan:
Huchra,"Mapping the Universe," Science 246 (17 p. 99, Fig. 3. Edizioni del Millone, 1956) Plate 16.
November 1989) pp. 885, 897-903 and cover.
18.John R. Wallaca, "Trends in Radiosity for Image 27. See [25].
7. Phil Mercurio has produced images with trans- Synthesis," in Kadi Bouatoch and Christian
parent components at the San Diego Super- Bouville, eds., Photorealism in ComputerGraphics, 28. From John Gregory and Irena Zdanowicz,
computing Center. See Science 255 (13 March (Berlin and New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992). See Rembrandtin the Collectionsof the National Galleryof
1992) p. 1358. the color plates of a Vermeer painting, Chartres, Victoria(Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria,
and an invented interior. 1988) Fig. 40.
8. From Erwin and Warren E. Pickett, "Theoretical
Fermi-Surface Properties and Superconducting Pa- 19. The dependence of traditional-looking scenes 29. From Leon BattistaAlberti, TenBookson Architec-
rameters for K3C60," Science 254 (8 November on software that works in nontraditional ways is ture, Cosimo Bartoli and James Leoni, trans. (Lon-
1991) pp. 842-845. brought out by examining the steps that lead to the don: Alec Triani, 1955), Plate 9.
generation of an image. See, for example, the inte-
9. The printout, which requires false color to be rior generated by six faces of a cube in Steve 30. From AJ. Hanson, "Techniques for Visualizing
fully legible, highlights a puddle of bitumen in the Upstill, The RenderManCompanion:A Programmer's Fermat's Last Theorem: A Case Study,"in Visualiza-
skull and a palm stalk between the spine and the Guide to RealisticComputerGraphics,2nd Ed. (Read- tion '90 (Los Alamos, NM: IEEE Society Press, 1990)
brain (just visible at the bottom of the plate). ing, MA.:Addison-Wesley, 1990), Plates 14 and 15. Fig. 3. Generated for the author on Mathematica.

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