Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/05/05

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Subject: [Leica] Re: against relativism
From: Christian Becker <chribeck@mdc-berlin.de>
Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 14:47:31 +0100

The current issue of Nature (vol 392, 30.April 98, pp877) includes an
article (scientific correspondence) about painters centering one eye in
portraits (presented examples are from Rogier van der Weyden (1640),
Sandro Botticelli (1480), Leonardo da Vinci (1505), Titian (1512), Peter
Paul Rubens (1622) and Rembrandt van Rijn (1659)). 
This article may interest those who took part in the 'what makes a good
photograph'-discussion which took place some weeks ago. It suggests (in
opposition to irrational 'all is relative'-statements) hidden principles
of aesthetic judgements operating generally and possibly beyond
portraiture. For eye-centering the author observes an unbiased accuracy
of +/- 5% over six centuries. 

Christian