NYU researcher unveils the scientist in painter C...( sely gridded paintings that we use here...),Health

sely gridded paintings that we use here to reveal the size dependence of shape perception. In fact, Close has devoted his career to studying just that . . . He was more thorough than his scientific colleagues; the size of the marks in his block portraits increased by 15 percent per year from 1973 (0.4 cm) to 1997 (9 cm). He made sure that exhibitions of his work would convey the idea, canceling a retrospective that could not provide long viewing distances. So credit Chuck Close with discovering this size-dependent breakdown of our ability to extract shape from shading, well within the bounds of our visual field and acuity."

Pelli also noted the distinction between the work of Close and that of other artists. He said, "There are well known antecedents to block painting: Lichtenstein's cartoons, Seurat's pointillism and the ancient mosaics at Delos and Pompeii. However, none used coarse grids to render three-dimensional shapes, so there is no duality. The mosaics and the pointillist grids are too fine to readily disintegrate into flat marks, and Lichtenstein's benday screens are uniform, so they're always flat, at all distances. The only precendent for the duality of Close's recent works may be the long-lost skiagraphia of Apollodorus."

This research was supported by the National Eye Institute.

Denis G. Pelli is an NYU professor of psychology and neural science. He received his Ph.D. in 1981 from Cambridge. He is the co-designer of an eye chart -- the Pelli-Robson contrast sensitivity chart -- that measures the faintest letter we can see, complementing the traditional eye chart measurement of the smallest letter we can see, to provide a more complete assessment of visual function.

'"/>

Contact: Josh Plaut
josh.plaut@nyu.edu
212-998-6797
New York University
5-Aug-1999

Page: 1 2 3
Related medicine news :

1. U of M researcher says Viagra may cause permanent vision loss in some men
2. Indiana University researchers closer to helping hearing-impaired using stem cells
3. Protein that helps skin cancer spread identified by Stanford researchers
4. US life expectancy about to decline, researchers say
5. Gene for age-related macular degeneration discovered by Yale researchers
6. Dartmouth researchers find where musical memories are stored in the brain
7. Columbia researchers receive $3 million to combat genetic killer of infants & toddlers
8. US cancer researchers launch first American-Israeli cancer conference
9. Mayo Clinic researcher calls for improved newborn screening
10. Hard choices: Pitt researcher presents findings on when to accept organ transplants
11. Brain-scanning technologies need standards, according to Stanford researcher