Roberta J. M. Olson

Bio: Roberta J. M. Olson is an academic researcher from New York Historical Society. The author has contributed to research in topics: Astronomer & Visual culture. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 14 publications receiving 39 citations. Previous affiliations of Roberta J. M. Olson include Wheaton College (Massachusetts).

The Earliest Comet Photographs: Usherwood, Bond, and Donati 1858:

Abstract: La precision des telescopes permit a Usherwood (W.); Bond (W.C.) et Donati (G.B.) de photographier au XIX e siecle des cometes en utilisant des plaques de verre revetues de collodion tres sensibles a la lumiere

Astronomy: Art of the eclipse

Abstract: As the next solar eclipse approaches, Jay M. Pasachoff and Roberta J. M. Olson ponder how artists from the early Renaissance onwards have interpreted the phenomenon.

Moon-Struck: Artists Rediscover Nature And Observe

Abstract: We discuss rare early depictions of the Moon by artists who actually observed Earth’s nearest neighbor rather than relying on stylized formulas. The earliest, from the 14th and 15th centuries, reveal that revolutionary advances in both pre-telescopic astronomy and naturalistic painting could go hand-in-hand. This link suggests that when painters observed the world, their definition of world could also include the heavens and the Moon. Many of the artists we discuss — e.g., Pietro Lorenzetti, Giotto, and Jan Van Eyck — actually studied the Moon, incorporating their studies into several works. We also consider the star map on the dome over the altar in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Florence (c. 1442), whose likely advisor was Toscanelli. In addition, we examine representations by artists who painted for Popes Julius II and Leo X — Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo, both of whom were influenced by individuals at the papal court, such as the astronomer, painter, and cartographer Johann (Giovanni) Ruysch and Leonardo da Vinci. We also discuss Leonardo’s pretelescopic notes and lunar drawings as they impacted on art and science in Florence, where Galileo would study perspective and chiaroscuro. Galileo’s representations of the Moon (engraved in his Sidereus Nuncius, 1610) are noted, together with those by Harriot and Galileo’s friend, the painter Cigoli. During the 17th century, the Moon’s features were telescopically mapped by astronomers with repercussions in art, e.g., paintings by Donati Creti and Raimondo Manzini as well as Adam Elsheimer. Ending with a consideration of the 19th-century artists/astronomers John Russell and John Brett and early lunar photography, we demonstrate that artistic and scientific visual acuity belonged to the burgeoning empiricism of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries that eventually yielded modern observational astronomy.

Comets, meteors, and eclipses: Art and science in early Renaissance Italy

Abstract: We discuss eight trecento (fourteenth century) paintings containing depictions of astronomical events to reveal the revolutionary advances made in both astronomy and naturalistic painting in early Renaissance Italy, noting that an artistic interest in naturalism predisposed these pioneering painters to make their scientific observations In turn, the convincing representations of their observations of astronomical phenomena in works of art rendered their paintings more believable, convincing Padua was already a renowned center for mathematics and nascent astronomy (which was separating from astrology) when Enrico Scrovegni commissioned the famous Florentine artist Giotto di Bondone to decorate his lavish family chapel (circa 1301-1303) Giotto painted a flaming comet in lieu of the traditional Star of Bethlehem in the Adoration of the Magi scene Moreover, he painted a historical apparition that he recently had observed with a great accuracy even by modern standards Halley's Comet of 1301 (Olson, 1979) While we do not know the identity of the artist's theological advisor, we discuss the possibility that Pietro d'Abano, the Paduan medical doctor and "astronomer" who wrote on comets, might have been influential We also compare Giotto's blazing comet with two others painted by the artist's shop in San Francesco at Assisi (before 1316) and account for the differences In addition, we discuss Giotto's pupil, Taddeo Gaddi, reputed to have been partially blinded by a solar eclipse, whose calamity may find expression in his frescoes in Santa Croce, Florence (1328-30; 1338?) Giotto also influenced the Sienese painter Pietro Lorenzetti, two of whose Passion cycle frescoes at Assisi (1316-20) contain dazzling meteor showers that reveal the artist's observed astronomical phenomena, such as the "radiant" effect of meteor showers, first recorded by Alexander von Humboldt in 1799 and only accepted in the nineteenth century Lorenzetti also painted sporadic, independent meteors, which do not emanate from the radiant It is also significant that these artists observed differences between comets and meteors, facts that were not absolutely established until the eighteenth century In addition we demonstrate that artistic and scientific visual acuity were part of the burgeoning empiricism of the fourteenth century, which eventually yielded modern observational astronomy

Art for a new audience in the Risorgimento: a meditation

Abstract: Competing foreign powers had divided the Italic peninsula into regions, so that it resembled the chessboard of Europe. With Napoleon's occupation, an Italian consciousness began to arise. As Neoclassicism and Romanticism ceded to Realism, artists participated in liberal politics and military struggles, many fighting under Garibaldi. Patriotic sentiments appeared in encoded genre scenes – for example, Hayez's two La meditazione paintings, the second subtitled L'Italia nel 1848 – or contemporary themes, like those by the Macchiaioli and the Induno brothers. Risorgimento content, including battles, multiplied, and they were joined by photography. Shifts in taste and patronage, from the Church and the ruling classes to liberal aristocrats, industrial entrepreneurs and middle-class professionals, encouraged new venues for the exhibition of art: the Exposition Universelle, civic Promotrici, Ricasoli's competition and the Esposizione Italiana. After unification, the search for political and artistic reform conti...

Solar eclipses as an astrophysical laboratory

Abstract: Observations of the Sun during total eclipses have led to major discoveries, such as the existence of helium (from its spectrum), the high temperature of the corona (though the reason for the high temperature remains controversial), and the role of magnetic fields in injecting energy into—and trapping ionized gases within—stellar atmospheres. A new generation of ground-based eclipse observations reaches spatial, temporal and spectral-resolution domains that are inaccessible from space and therefore complement satellite studies.

Molten territories: 21st century articulations of Auckland’s volcanoes

Abstract: Auckland city is built upon over 50 volcanoes. This research explores key selected meanings of these, with an eye to the role of physicality in meaning creation. The methodology includes landscape phenomenology and autoethnography placed in conversation with textual analysis of the New Zealand Herald newspaper. Representational and nonrepresentational accounts are addressed, including ???nonhuman charisma???. I develop a perspective that combines materialist insight with discourse theory to situate the meanings of the volcanoes in a more-than-human context. The thesis is structured around different methodological moments and actors. Analysis is backgrounded by a history of the reciprocal relationship between volcanoes and Auckland city. This suggests an augmentation of nonhuman charisma over time, as smaller and more distant volcanoes were quarried away and already-prominent cones gained physical, and later visual, protection. My own experiences are used to engage with the contemporary form of one volcano, Maungawhau/Mount Eden. This highlights the centrality of afforded vision and demonstrates intersections with concepts of ???nature???. These themes are echoed in the visual presence of volcanic cones when moving through the city. Charismatic volcanoes are also prominent semiotically and tied to local and city identity. This uneven familiarity and affective identification is shown to have formed an integral part of a recent media campaign to ???save??? certain volcanoes from damage. Other conservation tactics included selective mobilisation of ???heritage??? discourse, and obscure legislation that was itself granted efficacy through repeated media coverage. The physical and semiotic prominence of Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill can be similarly seen to underlie its persistent and emotive use as symbolic focus for race relation discussion. I note a shift in the presentation of the volcanoes following plans to return many volcanic cones to the iwi collective, Ng?? Mana Whenua o T??maki Makaurau, embodied in local media by use of ???maunga???, articulating volcanic cones as a group with contemporary Maori interests. The importance of a re-articulation with Maori is underscored by the volcanoes??? persistent and affective association with ???nature??? through geology and imagined disaster. This analysis draws on a bodily ???sublime??? aesthetic, the celebration of which paradoxically haunts even recent drives towards risk mitigation.

Painting the Heavens: Art and Science in the Age of Galileo.

Abstract: The remarkable astronomical discoveries made by Galileo with the new telescope in 1609-10 led to his famous disputes with philosophers and religious authorities, most of whom found their doctrines threatened by his evidence for Copernicus's heliocentric universe. In this book, Eileen Reeves brings an art historical perspective to this story as she explores the impact of Galileo's heavenly observations on painters of the early seventeenth century.Many seventeenth-century painters turned to astronomical pastimes and to the depiction of new discoveries in their work, yet some of these findings imposed controversial changes in their use of religious iconography. For example, Galileo's discovery of the moon's rough topography and the reasons behind its \"secondary light\" meant rethinking the imagery surrounding the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception, which had long been represented in paintings by the appearance of a smooth, incandescent moon. By examining a group of paintings by early modern artists all interested in Galileo's evidence for a Copernican system, Reeves not only traces the influence of science on painting in terms of optics and content, but also reveals the painters in a conflict between artistic depiction and dogmatic representation.Reeves offers a close analysis of seven works by Lodovico Cigoli, Peter Paul Rubens, Francisco Pacheco, and Diego Velazquez. She places these artists at the center of the astronomical debate, showing that both before and after the invention of the telescope, the proper evaluation of phenomena such as moon spots and the aurora borealis was commonly considered the province of the painter. Because these scientific hypotheses were complicated by their connection to Catholic doctrine, Reeves examines how the relationship between science and art, and their mutual production of knowledge and authority, must themselves be seen in a broader context of theological and political struggle.\

Report of the Council

Abstract: Introduction Traditionally each spring the executive director reports to the Council on the Society; reports can be pretty dull. “The best way to become boring,” wrote Voltaire, “is to say everything,” and I tried to heed Voltaire’s advice in recent years by choosing a particular perspective for each report—the transition in our publication program, a renewed commitment to outreach, the business side of the Society. This year’s report will once again look at the Society from a different perspective, concentrating on a face of the AMS that we often take for granted.

Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise: Humanism, History, and Artistic Philosophy in the Italian Renaissance

Abstract: This book examines the heretofore unsuspected complexity of Lorenzo Ghiberti's sculpted representations of Old Testament narratives in his Gates of Paradise (1425–52), the second set of doors he made for the Florence Baptistery and a masterpiece of Italian Renaissance sculpture. One of the most intellectually engaged and well-read artists of his age, Ghiberti found inspiration in ancient and medieval texts, many of which he and his contacts in Florence's humanist community shared, read, and discussed. He was fascinated by the science of vision, by the functioning of nature, and, above all, by the origins and history of art. These unusually well-defined intellectual interests, reflected in his famous Commentaries, shaped his approach in the Gates. Through the selection, imaginative interpretation, and arrangement of biblical episodes, Ghiberti fashioned multi-textured narratives that explore the human condition and express his ideas on a range of social, political, artistic, and philosophical issues.