Shadows of Expectation: Robert Hooke’s Picture Box and the Visual Economy of Projection

Valiaho talks about on eminent British natural philosopher Robert Hooke presented a paper to the Royal Society of London on "An Instrument of Use to Take the Draught, or Picture of Any Thing." Hooke presented to his fellows--a congregation of physicians, clergymen, noblemen, academics, and men of affairs--was a portable camera obscura. Camerae obscurae were originally literally dark chambers, equipped with a small aperture at one wall through which inverted light images were projected on the opposite wall. By the seventeenth century in Europe, camerae obscurae had become key instruments in all sorts of scientific inquiries, in addition to aiding artists in tracing the outlines of objects and rendering shadows and tonal values.