Digital art history: a subject in transition

137 Pages·2005·3.976 MB·English

by  Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Trish Cashen, Hazel Gardiner

Digital Art History1.Qrk 17/12/04 11:55 am Page 1
Digital art is not a discrete practice, separated EEddiittoorrss:: B
E COMPUTERS AND THE HISTORY OF ART VOLUME 1
from other art forms. It is an approach that may N
T
involve all manner of association with other art Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, K
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Courtauld Institute of Art, W
practices and with other forms of presentation and S DIGITAL
London, UK. K
enquiry, demonstrating that we are witnessing a A
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revolution that affects all our activities and not one K
A
Trish Cashen, Faculty of F
that simply leads to the establishment of a new E
Arts, The Open University, L
discipline to set alongside others. /C ART HISTORY
UK.
A
S
H
This book looks at the transformation that Art and Hazel Gardiner, Birkbeck EN
Art History is undergoing through engagement with College, London, UK. /G
A
the digital revolution. Since its initiation in 1985, R
D
CHArt (Computers and the History of Art) has set IN
E EDITED BY:
out to promote interaction between rapidly R
developing new Information Technology and the ANNA BENTKOWSKA-KAFEL,
study and practice of Art. It has become
increasingly clear in recent years that this TRISH CASHEN
interaction has led, not just to the provision of new
D AND HAZEL GARDINER
tools for the carrying out of existing practices, but I
G
to the evolution of unprecedented activities and IT
A
modes of thought. L

A
R
This collection represents the variety, innovation T

H
and richness of significant presentations made at I
S
the CHArt Conferences of 2001 and 2002. T
O
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Y
ISSN 1743-3959
ISBN 1-84150-116-6 i
n
t
intellect e
l ART &
PO Box 862 l
e
Bristol BS99 1DE c DESIGN
United Kingdom t
intellect
www.intellectbooks.com
9 781841 501161
Digital Art History1.Qrk 17/12/04 11:55 am Page 1
Digital art is not a discrete practice, separated EEddiittoorrss:: B
E COMPUTERS AND THE HISTORY OF ART VOLUME 1
from other art forms. It is an approach that may N
T
involve all manner of association with other art Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, K
O
Courtauld Institute of Art, W
practices and with other forms of presentation and S DIGITAL
London, UK. K
enquiry, demonstrating that we are witnessing a A
-
revolution that affects all our activities and not one K
A
Trish Cashen, Faculty of F
that simply leads to the establishment of a new E
Arts, The Open University, L
discipline to set alongside others. /C ART HISTORY
UK.
A
S
H
This book looks at the transformation that Art and Hazel Gardiner, Birkbeck EN
Art History is undergoing through engagement with College, London, UK. /G
A
the digital revolution. Since its initiation in 1985, R
D
CHArt (Computers and the History of Art) has set IN
E EDITED BY:
out to promote interaction between rapidly R
developing new Information Technology and the ANNA BENTKOWSKA-KAFEL,
study and practice of Art. It has become
increasingly clear in recent years that this TRISH CASHEN
interaction has led, not just to the provision of new
D AND HAZEL GARDINER
tools for the carrying out of existing practices, but I
G
to the evolution of unprecedented activities and IT
A
modes of thought. L

A
R
This collection represents the variety, innovation T

H
and richness of significant presentations made at I
S
the CHArt Conferences of 2001 and 2002. T
O
R
Y
ISSN 1743-3959
ISBN 1-84150-116-6 i
n
t
intellect e
l ART &
PO Box 862 l
e
Bristol BS99 1DE c DESIGN
United Kingdom t
intellect
www.intellectbooks.com
9 781841 501161
DigitalArtHistory 20/12/04 11:20 am Page i
Digital Art History
A Subject in Transition
Computers and the History of Art Volume One
Edited by
Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Trish Cashen and Hazel Gardiner
DigitalArtHistory 20/12/04 11:20 am Page ii
First Published in the UK in 2005 by
Intellect Books, PO Box 862, Bristol BS99 1DE, UK
First Published in the USA in 2005 by
Intellect Books, ISBS, 920 NE 58th Ave. Suite 300, Portland, Oregon 97213-3786, USA
Copyright © 2005 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Electronic ISBN 1-84150-910-8 / ISBN 1-84150-116-6
ISSN 1743-3959
Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons
Copy Editor: Julie Strudwick
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd.
DigitalArtHistory 20/12/04 11:20 am Page iii
Digital Art History
A Subject in Transition
Exploring Practice in a Network Society
Computers and the History of Art, Yearbook 2004, Volume 1
Edited by Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Trish Cashen and Hazel Gardiner
This edition is drawn from papers presented at the CHArt annual conferences held at the
British Academy, 27-28 November 2001 and 14-15 November 2002 respectively. The CHArt
Committee refereed the conferences and papers. With the exception of William Vaughan’s
article, the papers are also available online at www.chart.ac.uk. William Vaughan’s article is
an expanded and revised version of a text published in the proceedings of the EVA
Conference Electronic Imaging and the Visual Arts, 25 July 2002, Imperial College, London,
pp. 1.1-5. It is also available online in zeitenblicke 2 (2003), Nr. 1 [8 May 2003],
www.zeitenblicke.historicum. net/2003/01/vaughan/index.html.
Disclaimer: The articles in this collection express the views of the authors and
not necessarily those of the members of the CHArt Committee.
Articles © individual author(s) and reproduction is with their permission.
Illustrations © individual authors.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical
or otherwise, without first seeking the written permission of the copyright owners
and of the publisher.
CHArt Editor in Chief:Charlie Gere
CHArt Managing Editor:John Sunderland
CHArt Committee:
Christopher Bailey, Northumbria University, UK
Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK
Trish Cashen, The Open University, UK
Marilyn Deegan, Oxford University, UK
Rupert Faulkner, Victoria and Albert Museum, UK
Hazel Gardiner, Birkbeck College, London, UK
Charlie Gere (Chair), Birkbeck College, London, UK
Marlene Gordon, University of Michigan, USA
Michael Hammel, IT University, Copenhagen, Denmark
Colum Hourihane, Princeton University, USA
Hubertus Kohle, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany
DigitalArtHistory 20/12/04 11:20 am Page iv
Dunja Kukovec, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Phillip Purdy, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, London, UK
John Sunderland, London, UK
Tanya Szrajber, British Museum, London, UK
William Vaughan, Birkbeck College, London, UK
Suzette Worden, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia
CHArt, School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media, Birkbeck College, University of
London, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD. Tel: [phone], Fax: +44
(0)20 7631 6107, www.chart.ac.uk, Email: publications@ chart.ac.uk.
DigitalArtHistory 20/12/04 11:20 am Page v
Table of Contents
vii Contributors
1 Introduction
by William Vaughan
TEACHING AND COMMUNICATION
3 History of Art in the Digital Age:
Problems and Possibilities
by William Vaughan
15 Animating Art History:
Digital Ways of Studying Colour in Abstract Art
by Mary Pearce
VISUALISING THE PAST
35 The Cathedral as a Virtual Encyclopaedia:
Reconstructing the ‘Texts’ of Chartres Cathedral
by Stephen Clancy
45 With Camera to India, Iran and Afghanistan:
Access to Multimedia Sources of the Explorer Professor Dr
Morgenstierne (1892-1975)
by Wlodek Witek
ONLINE ART
57 Towards a Yet Newer Laocoon. Or, What We Can Learn
from Interacting with Computer Games
by Michael Hammel
65 Digital Arts On (the) Line
by Dew Harrison and Suzette Worden
METHODS AND PRACTICES
77 Bringing Pictorial Space to Life:
Computer Techniques for the Analysis of Paintings
by Antonio Criminisi, Martin Kemp and Andrew Zisserman
101 Enhancing a Historical Digital Art Collection:
Evaluation of Content-Based Image Retrieval on Collage
by Annette A. Ward, Margaret E. Graham, K. Jonathan Riley
and Nic Sheen
DigitalArtHistory 20/12/04 11:20 am Page vi
113 Abstracts
119 CHArt – Computers and the History of Art
121 Guidelines for Submitting Papers for the CHArt Yearbook
DigitalArtHistory 20/12/04 11:20 am Page vii
Contributors
Anna Bentkowska-Kafel is currently working on digitisation of images for the
Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland (www.crsbi.ac.uk) and is
Researcher for the Digital Image Archive Groupat Birkbeck College, London. Her
research, teaching and publications have been mainly on early modern visual
culture in Western Europe, with special interest in cosmological and
anthropomorphic representations of nature; as well as the use of digital imaging in
iconographical analysis and interpretation of paintings. She has an M.A. in the
History of Art (Warsaw), M.A. in Computing Applications for the History of Art
(London) and Ph.D. in Digital Media Studies (Southampton). She has been a
member of the CHArt committee since 1999.
Trish Cashen has been involved with integrating computing into university level
humanities teaching since 1993. Initially Research Officer for Art History with the
CTI (Computers in Teaching Initiative), she moved to Birkbeck College where she
taught on the M.A. in Computer Applications for the History of Art, and The Open
University, where she is currently charged with exploiting new media for teaching
arts subjects. Her main areas of interest are exploring the pedagogical effectiveness
of new media and using the Internet for art history – she maintains the WWW
Virtual Library for the History of Art (www.chart.ac.uk/vlib/). At present she is
working on the educational potential of DVD video, as well as contributing to an
interactive CD-ROM of the Soane Museum and to electronic resources for the
Open University’s M.A. in Art History. She has been a member of the CHArt
committee since 1994.
Stephen Clancy has a Ph.D. in Art History from Cornell University. Since 1988
he has been a professor in the Department of Art History at Ithaca College in New
York, where he currently serves as Chair. He teaches medieval art and architecture
and Northern Renaissance painting and sculpture, as well as courses on visual
persuasion and the rhetoric of art. He has also published on the fifteenth-century
French manuscript illuminator and panel painter Jean Fouquet. He spent a year in
Belgium on a Fulbright research scholarship studying the manuscript illumination
of Simon Marmion.
Antonio Criminisihas a Ph.D. in Computer Vision from the University of Oxford.
His thesis ‘Accurate Visual Metrology from Single and Multiple Uncalibrated
Images’ won the British Computer Society Dissertation Award for the year 2000
and was published by Springer-Verlag London Ltd. in 2001. His research interests
are in the area of image-based modelling, texture analysis, video analysis and
editing, 3D reconstruction from single and multiple images with application to C
o
Virtual Reality, Forensic Science, Image-Based Rendering and Art History. n
trib
u
Hazel Gardiner is Research Officer for the M.A. Digital Art History (formerly tors
M.A. Computer Applications for the History of Art) at Birkbeck College, and v
ii