Fenn at [EMAIL PROTECTED],Internet writes:
>Yesterday i thought I'd found it on the web: chambre a stenope (L Da
>Vinci), but this is rather like a camera obscura and the NG said that in
>this one there were no mirrors, shutters, no glass, nothing that had
>anything to do with photography.
Actually, a camera obscura doesn't have any lenses or shutters or whatever--
it's essentially a box with a pinhole to look through and a slightly larger
aperture which allows light into the box to project an image of something
outside the box into the box. Sorry that isn't terribly clear but I'm too
tired
to think of a better wording. Anyway, the camera obscura (or "oscura") is the
ancestor of the modern photographic camera and most histories of photography
do provide an explanation of it because the optics involved are the basis for
photography.
Your "perspective box" is usually called a "peep-show" in English but the
term has fallen into disrepute because that kind of device fell out of
general
use with the invention of film and the name was transferred to the type of
machine which showed a short "dirty" film when you peered into it. New
York's 42nd Street used to contain numerous places where "dirty old men"
could see such things. Now you can see the same things in films or on TV
so the "peep shows" have mostly disappeared.
I still have no idea what the right French term might be for the
particular type of box you are talking about. It still seems like a
"diorama en miniature" or "maquette" or something inside a box with
a hole in it for viewing and presumably a second hole somewhere to
provide a light-source. If the Louvre can't help you, try the reference
librarian at the nearest university library with a decent Fine Arts
collection, who would probably be willing to look up the correct
technical term for you.
Regards,
Judyth
