Illustration from Kircher’s Ars magna lucis et umbrae (1671) reproduced in Josef Maria Eder’s Ausführliches Handbuch der Photographie (1905)

Featured on PDR in the essay Watching the World in a Dark Room: The Early Modern Camera Obscura

Centuries before photography froze the world into neat frames, scientists, poets, and artists streamed transient images into dark interior spaces with the help of a camera obscura. Julie Park explores the early modern fascination with this quasi-spiritual technology and the magic, melancholy, and dream-like experiences it produced.

Other works by the artist in the archive…

Athanasius Kircher’s camera obscura

Artist

Date

1905

From

Ausführliches Handbuch der Photographie


Underlying Rights

Public Domain Worldwide

Digital Rights

No Additional Rights


Image Size

1723 x 1009