Physics students at Worcester State University visit the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) at the end of a special 100-level course called Physics in Art. The students have studied geometrical optics, and they have been introduced to concepts in atomic physics. The purpose of the museum tour is to show how physics-based techniques can be used in a nontraditional lab setting. Other examples of the use of museum-based art in physics instruction include analyses of Pointillism and image resolution, and of reflections in soap bubbles in 17- and 18th-century paintings.
References
1.
D. A.
Dale
and B. L.
Bailey
, “Physics in the art museum
,” Phys. Teach.
41
, 82
(Feb.
2003
).2.
F.
Behroozi
, “Soap bubbles in paintings: Art and science
,” Am. J. Phys.
76
, 1087
(Dec.
2008
).3.
The “Physics at WAM” tour guide is available on request, or it can be downloaded from the Worcester Art Museum
at http://www.worcesterart.org/collection/academic-collaboratives.4.
A.
Kirsh
and R. S.
Levenson
, Seeing Through Paintings
(Yale University Press
, New Haven
, 2000
).5.
D. C.
Rich
in European Paintings in the Worcester Art Museum
(Worcester Art Museum
, 1974
).6.
7.
The Lady at Her Toilette, School of Fontainebleau, ca. 1580, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, Inv. CA 118; and Portrait of a Lady, School of Fontainebleau, ca. 1570, Inv. 2324, Kunstmuseum Basel.
8.
The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck, 1434, The National Gallery of London, NG186; and Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror, Francesco Mazzola, known as Parmigianino, 1523-1524, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Inv. 286. Additional examples of convex mirrors in round frames are shown in The Moneylender and His Wife, Quentin Metsys, 1514, Musée du Louvre, Inv. 1444; Woman With a Mirror, Titian, 1515, Musée du Louvre, Inv. 755; The Painter Hans Burgkmaier and His Wife Anna, Lukas Furtenagel, 1529, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Inv. 924; and Martha and Mary Magdalene, Caravaggio, 1598, Detroit Institute of Arts 73.268.
9.
G.
Vasari
, The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
, trans. by A. B.
Hinds
(J. M. Dent
, London
, 1963
).10.
D. G.
Stork
and Y.
Furuichi
, “Reflections on Parmigianino’s Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror: A computer graphics reconstruction of the artist’s studio
,” Proc. SPIE
7531
(2010
).11.
A.
Macfarlane
and G.
Martin
, “A world of glass
,” Sci.
305
, 1407
(2004
).12.
S. J.
Schechner
, “Between knowing and doing: Mirrors and their imperfections in the Renaissance
,” Early Sci. Med.
10
, 137
(2005
).13.
Eileen R.
Doyle
in Art in the Mirror: Reflection in the Work of Rauschenberg, Richter, Graham and Smithson
, PhD Dissertation (The Ohio State University
, 2004
).14.
The figures are very similar to a bronze sculpture ascribed to the Venetian artist Tullio Lombardi (1460-1532). This is consistent with a Venetian origin of the mirror. For the Lombardi bronze, see L. Planiscig, Die Bronzeplastiken, catalog of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (1924).
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2017
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