Jean François Niceron: Perspective and artificial magic

Abstract

The essay deals with the perspectival and artistic work of Minim Father Jean François Niceron (1613-1646), whose life was expressed in a very short period of time - just 33 years - but full of political and cultural events, reflected in works offered today to the eyes of the contemporary observer as extraordinary charades, in perfect balance between mathematical rigor and taste for the wonderful and amazing. Author of two treaties (the second of which published posthumously) which have become milestones in studies of Seventeenth-century perspective - La perspective curieuse (Paris 1638) and the Thaumaturgus opticus (Paris 1646) -, Niceron early developed from his expressive world which he translated in acutely deceptive works: catoptric anamorphoses, refractive games and murals in accelerated perspective (the only one survived, depicting St. John the Evangelist writing the Apocalypse in Patmos, it is now visible at the Convent of SS. Trinita dei Monti, Rome), to name a few types.

Keywords

• history and theory of representational methods
• history of descriptive geometry
• history of science
• perspective in art
• catoptric in art