Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, Plate II
Description:
“Plate II” presents two figures, both of which refer to a sedan-chair style camera obscura in which a person can comfortably sit. Figure 7 is a view of the interior of this alternative camera obscura, “a machine shaped almost like a hackney chair” (J. Ozanam, Recreations, 178), in which exterior images from all around the machine can be projected onto an interior surface using a rotating mirror for reproduction. It can also be used to reproduce paintings and prints with great accuracy. Along with instruction for the assembly of this camera obscura, Figure 8 shows a tube that is bent at both ends, constructed specifically to allow air but not light into the chamber.
Copyright:
Copyright 2009, Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Primary Works:
Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Four Volumes
Accession Number:
CA 8397
Height (in centimeters):
22
Width (in centimeters):
14
Marks Description
Inscr. top left with “Vol. II,” top right with “Optics Pl. II,” and lower right with “Mutlow, Sc Russell Co.”Printing Context
“Plate II” appears in Charles Hutton’s translation of Jacques Ozanam’s Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Four Volumes.Associated Events
Charles Hutton, LL.D. and F.R.S. (1737–1823): British, Hutton received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society of London in 1778 for his papers on the physics of velocity. He resigned from the Royal Society in 1784 over a dispute about the role of mathematics in the organization.Associated Places
Charles Hutton taught at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, England and was elected a member of the Royal Society of London on June 16, 1773.Associated Texts
Ozanam’s original text was published in Paris 1694. In addition to Hutton’s translation and revision of the text in 1803, which was reissued in 1814, Montucla’s revised and expanded editions were published in Paris in 1778 and 1709, and E. Riddle published yet another edition, entitled Recreations in Science and Natural Philosophy, in London in 1844. A version of the image on “Plate II” appears in William-James Gravesande’s An Essay on Perspective, which was translated into English and published in 1724.Subject
As evidenced in the sustained revision, expansion, and republication of Jacques Ozanam’s original work on recreational experiments from the late seventeenth century to the nineteenth, optical technologies and rational experiments stimulated the Romantic visual imagination and reinforced the emphasis on edification and self-improvement through efforts at practical education in the domestic sphere. This illustration of the sedan-chair style of camera obscura, in which a single person could obscure himself, is accompanied by instructions on how to construct the apparatus in the text.Theme
Experiments in physical science; optical instruments and their effectsSignificance
As discussed by Barbara Maria Stafford, Hutton’s translated text aligns with the increased interest in rational recreations, popular leisure pursuits which were intended to simultaneously entertain and intellectually edify young people. Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy is an example of the rapid popularization of these recreational texts in the Romantic period, particularly for use in the domestic space. As noted by Helen Groth, in the nineteenth century the domestic arena “becomes a space of productive labor, where the mind of the child is actively shaped by the rationalizing energies of the family dedicated to the principles of useful knowledge” (H. Groth, “Domestic Phantasmagoria” 161). The ability not only to enjoy the illusions produced by camera obscuras, magic lanterns, and other optical devices, but, importantly, to distinguish the illusory from the real was paramount to the rational recreations agenda.Function
A text on how to create optical instruments for recreational scientific experiments.Bibliography
Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.Long Title
Jacques Ozanam, Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Four Volumes, Plate II: Camera Obscura, engraving, 21.8 x 13.5 cm, inscr. top left with “Vol. II,” top right with “Optics Pl. II,” and lower right with “Mutlow, Sc Russell Co.,” UW Department of Special Collections.Featured in Exhibit:
Image Date:
1803