# Art: Modern History and Renaissance



## Whitewave (Sep 14, 2020)

Sorry in advance to make a whole new thread for just this little dab of info but I didn't see where else to put it. If there's a thread I missed where it would be better suited, feel free to move it.

A 14 minute video of which only the first 6.5 minutes are of interest (to me). Guy found an old book with pictures (Neuer Atlas Uber Die Gantze Welt by Johann Baptist Homann). He zooms in on the 1715 painting/drawing to reveal a technique I've never seen or even heard of before. The picture itself, at first glance, is pretty typical of medieval artwork-just a portrait-nothing to make one suspect anything out of the ordinary for the times. Until he zooms in. There are no brush strokes. Every detail (and it's very detailed) are just lines; the shadows, the designs, the background, the drapes and clothing, the face, all of it are either straight lines or concentric circles. It reminds me of those modern pictures that when you zoom in are individual pixels of a bunch of faces that, altogether, comprise the main face of the picture. 
How long would something like this have taken? Surely, the picture subject didn't pose for this. What art schools were in existence that taught this highly skilled method? How in the world did anyone ever figure out how to do something like that without the aid of computer graphics? I have got to start zooming in on more pictures. Seriously, I felt like Leuwenhook when first he looked at a drop of water with his highly polished glass and discovered "wee beasties". Who would ever have thought to even look? What could there possibly be to see out of the ordinary?
Maybe some of the more artistically inclined on the site could tell me if this technique is as mind-blowing as it seems to me or if this is "old hat" art technique that's apparently been around since at least 1715. 

*language alert-guy cusses (unnecessarily imho)*


> Note: This OP was recovered from the Wayback Archive.





> Note: Archived Sh.org replies to this OP: Art: Modern History and Renaissance


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## Whitewave (Oct 9, 2020)

Has this artistic technique been explained? Is it still being taught?


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