Mathematics revealing Art.
Discerning the hand of the master? Can a mathematical analysis of a high-resolution digital version of a painting allow researchers to deduce reliably whether a painting is original or not? (see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/art-authentication.html ) Ingrid Daubechies is an applied mathematician, who holds a James B. Duke chair of Professor of Mathematics at Duke University. She is interested in developing mathematical tools that help scientists and engineers find and use structure and patterns in complex data. She is most known for her works on wavelets; some of the mathematical constructs she developed are now part of the JPEG2000 image compression standard used in many internet application as well as in digital movies in the US and Europe.
Charlotte Caspers is a Dutch artist and art historian. During her graduate education, in painting restoration techniques, she concentrated her attention especially on historically accurate painting materials and techniques. She is also an independent creative artist in her own right, using the expertise acquired during her studies in her own paintings. Her creative work is characterized by rich but delicate textures. The eye of the beholder finds details that anchor and delight, and that invite to further scrutiny. Superb craftsmanship and a careful, confident use of the materials provide the paintings with an extra poetic layer that enhances the subject. Charlotte herself considers it the highest possible compliment if spectators find that looking at her paintings brings them joy.
In her own art, Caspers’s stated goal is to make jewelry for our walls that will provide extra luster to life. In addition to her career as an independent artist, Caspers has undertaken projects in art reconstruction for musea, companies, and individual patrons. She has collaborated on research projects involving art reconstruction with the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Rijksmuseum in Twenthe en de Selexyz Library in Maastricht (all in the Netherlands) as well as the Tate in London (UK) and the St-Bavo Cathedral in Ghent (Belgium). www.charlottecaspers.nl Charlotte Caspers is visiting North Carolina in September and October 2012, thanks to a grant jointly from the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Visiting Artist program of Duke University. During most of September her focus is on the reconstruction of a missing panel of an altarpiece by Ghissi (Italian, 14th century), of which NCMA has three panels in its own collection, and on which it plans to hold a special exhibition in 2013, featuring a reunion with the other known panels of the altarpiece (now in New York, Chicago and Portland). In October, she will hold several workshops on art reconstruction, and on painting techniques from the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. She will then also work on a research project with Ingrid Daubechies on differences between original paintings and copies of existing paintings.