Announcements

Please submit the Final Essay via CUHK's Veriguide system, as "Assignment 1" under UGED1533, on or before May 18.
Online Lecture Arrangements
1. Starting on Feb 17, 2020 and until further notice, we will conduct our lectures online via the ZOOM platform: https://cuhk-edtech.padlet.org/web/ma76lbjt9hu8
2. Each class will essentially be a ZOOM "Meeting" hosted by the instructor, taking place during the same timeslot as they have normally been scheduled: Tuesday 13:30 - 16:15.
  To join, please click on:
  https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/476555796?pwd=anBxQ1dIRFE2M1BXUDNGa1F1MWU4Zz09
  Meeting ID: 476-555-796
  Meeting Password: 148150
  Your web browser should automatically launch or download-then-launch the "ZOOM Cloud Meeting" program on your computer/smartphone/tablet.
  If that does not work, please download and install the Zoom app separately, "Sign in with SSO", enter "cuhk" for the "company domain", then join each meeting using the corresponding Meeting ID and Password listed above.
Assessment The new online teaching measures should hopefully not affect the in-class activities portion of our assessment scheme too much. We will simply conduct the in-class activities as part of the ZOOM meeting class. Your attendance will be considered as an element of "in-class activities".
For the Final Exam, we don't know if the public health situation would be safe enough for students to take an in-class exam (originally scheduled to take place on the last day of class) by the end of the term.
If the campus is not safe enough to return to physically by April 14, we will tentatively change the Final Exam format to a Final Essay/Project which you will need to submit on or before May 15. Further details remain to be work out.
Your feedback and suggestions on these measures are more than welcome.

Assignments

Due Mar 3
Watch this video. We will discuss it in class.
Due Feb 25
Reading Assignment: Perspective, Rex Vicat Cole. Ch. 1-2.
Reference reading: Simplifying perspective : a step-by-step guide for visual artists /Robert Pastrana
Feb 18, 2020
- Required Reading: Pages 1 - 9 of Misconceptions about the Golden Ratio.
- Recommended Reading: Rest of the article.
Due Week 3 (Jan 21)
- Read the section "THE ANCIENT SOURCES" at the end of Richard Tobin's The Canon of Polykleitos.
- We will have a group discussion on the material in class.
- You should be able to access the document via the CUHK internet network. Otherwise you might need to connect to the internet via the CUHK VPN in order to access the document.
Due Week 2 (Jan 14)
Look up the historical figure Vitruvius (Marcus Vitruvius Pollio).
In-class Quiz:
- When did Vitruvius live?
- Where did he live?
- What did he do for a living?
- Tell us one thing about him that interests you.
Recommended reading: De Architectura, Vitruvius. Book III Ch. 1.

Presentation Slides

General Information

Lecturer

CHAN, Ping Shun
- Office: LSB 209
- Email:
- Office Hours: By appointment.

Time and Venue

Lecture: 1:30PM - 4:15PM Mong Man Wai Bldg 710

Course Description

This course aims to help students appreciate the role which mathematics plays in the development of Western visual art, discern mathematical elements in visual artworks, and reflect on the oft-held belief that there exists an impassable gulf between art and science. Topics include: the role which mathematics plays in Greco-Roman aesthetic theories, the mathematical basis of linear perspective in painting, the mathematics behind different models in colour theory, planar symmetries in visual art and their connection to group theory, and mathematical methods in the analysis of artworks.

Useful Links

Grapher 3D model for Linear Perspective (requires Mac OS X)

Assessment Scheme

In-class short-answer quizzes, hands-on activities. One to two short essay assignments.		50%
Final Essay (due May 18, 2020)		50%

Final Essay

You are free to choose your own topic for the Final Essay. The essay will be evaluated in terms of the following criteria:
- How closely it relates to the material of the course.
- Thoroughness of the research on which the paper is based.
- Clarity of reasoning and presentation.
- Strength of organization and structure.
- Standard writing benchmarks such as: grammatical accuracy and precision of expression, appropriateness of references.
The essay may be written in either Chinese or English. Its length should be 1500 - 2400 words in English, or 1800 - 3000 words in Chinese.
It should be submitted in either pdf or Microscoft Word format to the Blackboard system (further details will be announced).
The range of possible topics is quite broad.
The essay could be a profile on the life, or specific aspects of the life, of a historial figure such as Leon Battista Alberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, or Hermann Grassmann, among others, whom we have mentioned in the course.
It could be a book report.
It could be a more indepth discussion of Linear Perspective (explore, for instance, its relation to Projective Geometry in Mathematics).
It could explore how Art intersects with Mathematics in any area (e.g. architecture, Zaha Hadid) which we do not get to discuss at length during the term.

Honesty in Academic Work

The Chinese University of Hong Kong places very high importance on honesty in academic work submitted by students, and adopts a policy of zero tolerance on cheating and plagiarism. Any related offence will lead to disciplinary action including termination of studies at the University. Although cases of cheating or plagiarism are rare at the University, everyone should make himself / herself familiar with the content of the following website:

http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/

and thereby help avoid any practice that would not be acceptable.