Illuminationlighting design

Illumination is the act of illuminating, or creating and supplying with light.  For the Illustrators of the Middle Ages, the creation of this light I believe holds a much deeper meaning than being purely aesthetic.  Most of these illustrated manuscripts were religious texts, and they were portraying religious stories.  Looking at the image taken from The Book of Kells, one of the most famous and intricate illustrated manuscripts that survives today, the deeper meaning and purpose of illumination is clear.  For this post, I focused on the use of light and how it represented both God and the light of God.  This holds one of the deepest meanings and purpose of this time, and the artists are using these precious metals and colors to represent this light of God and the importance of religion in society.

What isilluminationin the Bible

The figure shows directional light originating from a point source that covers a larger area the further away it is from the source. As the light travels it has a specific brightness and size at any given point. The inverse square law shows that when light travels twice the distance its area grows four times as large and the brightness decreases by four times. The rate a light grows in area and decreases in brightness is related to the distance it travels from another point squared.

Illuminationof light formula

As you move away from a light source, the light gets dimmer. No doubt you have noticed this with reading lamps, streetlights, and so on. Figure 1 shows what is happening. The blue area, marked "S," represents a point source of light. Imagine the light from the star spreading out into empty space in all directions. Now imagine the light that falls on a square at some arbitrary distance from the star (r). Move away, doubling the distance from the star (2r). The light from the original square has now "spread out" over an area of 4 (= 22) squares. Thus, at twice the original distance, the intensity (power per square meter) of the light passing through a single square will be 1/4 of the original intensity. Going out still farther, tripling the original distance (3r), and the light from the original square now covers an area of 9 (= 32) squares. Thus, at three times the original distance, the intensity of the light passing through a single square will be 1/9 of the original intensity. This is what is meant by the inverse square law. As you move away from a point light source, the intensity of the light is proportional to 1/r2, the inverse square of the distance. Because the same geometry applies to many other physical phenomena (sound, gravity, electrostatic interactions), the inverse square law has significance for many problems in physics.

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Types ofilluminationin slit lamp

While the light of God is only one of the themes that artists have portrayed through illumination over the past centuries, it has an important historical meaning, and it is why I focused on it for this post.  The theme “sheds light” on the ability of illumination to change the purpose and understanding of any piece of art.

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Types ofilluminationPDF

Illuminationlighting meaning

Often times when considering illumination and artwork, the first response someone will think of relates to the famous illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages.  However, as we were sitting in class today, viewing multiple examples of these manuscripts, all I was considering was what was the purpose and reason for illuminators and illustrators to begin using this technique for their manuscripts?  What does the use of illumination really mean?

Artists creating the light of God through illumination is an incredibly common technique throughout history, and it is seen in the artwork of different time periods for centuries to come.  Throughout the Renaissance, there were consistent portrayals of Jesus resurrecting surrounded by the light of God, or the Virgin Mary bathed in a gold and bright background in any portrayal of her.  Moving forward into the 20th century, while the light of God may not be as obvious as the Renaissance, the use of illumination and light to represent it is still very common.  Looking at a piece by Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Thankful Poor, the light of God is coming in through the window as a man and his grandson pray at the breakfast table.

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But do not just take our word for it! Why not see for yourself if light really behaves this way? This project shows you how you can use a light-sensitive resistor, called a photoresistor, which has an electrical resistance (measured in ohms (Ω)) that changes with exposure to light, and a digital multimeter to see if light intensity really does decrease according to the inverse square law. You will measure the resistance of the photoresistor at different distances from a light source. Using information from the photoresistor's datasheet, you can convert the resistance measurement to lux, the SI unit of illuminance (a measure of intensity that accounts for how different wavelengths are perceived by the human eye). You can then create a graph to see how illuminance changes with distance from the light source, and verify if it follows the inverse square law.