Art Talk with Professor Thomas Germano - The Mechanical Eye

Photography has been around for less than two hundred years yet cameras and mechanically produced images have been with us for well over five centuries. Artists have developed and used lenses for projecting images onto fixed surfaces such as paper, canvases and panels. Drawing and painting has benefited from using lenses as we’ll see in the work by Hans Holbein The Younger, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Thomas Eakins, Charles Sheeler, and Richard Estes. The camera Lucida employed by Canaletto in 18th century Venice and Frederic Catherwood in the early 19th century in the Americas.
The human eye sees and records the world very differently than a mechanical eye that distorts the visual world in peculiar and obvious ways. Visual artists and specialists working in the optical fields can easily spot when a mechanical eye is used due to how certain distortions occur as David Hockney touches upon in his “Secret Knowledge” theory.
This visual lecture will present a wide range of artists who use camera technology in unique and innovative ways, covering a wide range of artists and artwork spanning 500+ years, from the Renaissance to photo realism and the age of ZOOM drawing sessions conducted on-line. Professor Thomas Germano will present this visual and virtual lecture.

This is a virtual program available through the Zoom application. [CLICK HERE](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81535346418) to join the Zoom meeting.

Topic: Art Talk with Professor Thomas Germano - The Mechanical Eye
Time: May 10, 2021 03:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Meeting ID: 815 3534 6418
Passcode: 702989
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)