The Fredösphere

We've all read about the breakthroughs made by late-19th century painters in the use of colors.  One thing they learned is how to communicate shape and shading through changes in hue instead of value (i.e., brightness).

In my day job as a programmer in computer graphics, I've been trained to view photorealism as the Holy Grail of my profession.  That's why I was so startled by  this paper on non-photorealistic lighting models for computer-generated images.  (For a nice summary, go straight to the introduction.)

It seems that by using hue to communicate shape in a technical drawing, one can preserve detail that would otherwise be lost in shadowy regions.  I don't know if theory or intuition lead the way here, but in any case this paper describes how the process can now be reduced to mathmatics (and from there, to computer generation).  Personally, I agree with the author that the images produced are beautiful (particularly as David Gelernter defines it.)

So Mr. Cezanne sir, here's a corkscrew to open that bottle. (Click on images for larger versions and more information.)

For a paper on computer replication of other artistic techniques, see this.  Or just sit down with Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro and start playing.