Anamorphic Art by Baltrusaitus, Jurgis - 1977

NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1977. Hardcover. VG/VG. Red cloth. 182 pp. 129 bw plates. A fascinating and in-depth look at this obscure style of art, where the image is distorted so that it is intelligible only if viewed from an eccentric point-of-view of through reflection in a curved mirror. Important for it's connection to the study of perspective, among other things. Translated by W.J. Strachan. Scarce. Contents as follows: Accelerated or decelerated perspective -- The first anamorphoses and thier dissemination: sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -- French masters of perspective: Salomon de Caus, Niceron, Maignan -- Descartes: automata and doubt -- The artists' quarrel: the academy versus Desargues and Bosse -- German visionaries: Kircher and Schott -- Holbein's 'The ambassadors' -- Optical diversions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries -- Mirror anamorphoses -- Chinese prestidigitation.