University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Faculty Publications Faculty Work 1987 The Life and Unusual Ideas of Adelbert Ames, Jr. Roy R. Behrens University of Northern Iowa Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy Copyright ©1987 The MIT Press Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/art_facpub Part of the Art and Design Commons Recommended Citation Behrens, Roy R., "The Life and Unusual Ideas of Adelbert Ames, Jr." (1987). Faculty Publications. 5. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/art_facpub/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Work at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Life and Unusual Ideas of Adelbert Ames, Jr. Roy R. Behrens Abstract-This paper is a summary of the life and major achievements of Adelbert Ames, Jr., an American ophthalmologist and perceptual psychologist, who had initially wanted to be a visual artist. He is most widely remembered today as the inventor of the Ames Demonstrations in Perception, the most famous of which consists of a distorted room in which people seem to shrink as they walk from one corner to another. This essay discusses the relationship of the Ames Demonstrations to anamorphic visual art, and it documents various comments by perceptual psychologists and artists who were directly acquainted with Ames. Fig. 1. In the Overlay Demonstration (this is a reconstruction of only one part of the original version), Ames removed a corner section of a playing card so that the card more distant from the viewer (the eight of hearts) appears to be less distant. I. INTRODUCTION more widely remembered today as the the surprising resemblance between some inventor of the Ames Demonstrations in of the Ames Demonstrations and certain Adelbert Ames, Jr. (1880-1955) was an American ophthalmologist and per- Perception, a series of visual illusions, the types of visual art, both historical and most famous of which consists of a full- ceptual psychologist who had initially contemporary. This paper is a brief wanted to be a visual artist [1]. sized distorted room which appears to be review of the life and the major achievements of Ames. As an ophthalmologist, he is credited normal from one point of view, but in with the diagnosis of aniseikonia, a which people seem to shrink as they walk malformation of the eyes in which the from one corner to another [2]. II. HIS INTEREST IN THE VISUAL right and left retinal images are so For about 15 years, I have been actively interested in the life and unusual ideas of ARTS distinctively varied in size that they cannot readily be fused by the brain. Ames. I am familiar with his published Ames was born on 19 August 1880, in As a perceptual psychologist, he is writings, and I have read most of the Lowell, Massachusetts. His maternal papers and books in which his work has grandfather was General Benjamin been assessed. Over the years, in Butler, Governor of Massachusetts and Roy R. Behrens (artist, writer, teacher), Ballast Quarterly Review, Art Academy of Cincinnati, Eden collaboration with a number of my an unsuccessful candidate for President Park, Cincinnati, OH 45202, U.S.A. students and colleagues, I have re- in 1884 [3]. His paternal grandfather was constructed some of his demonstrations. Received 27 May 1986. Captain Jesse Ames, proprietor of the As an artist, I am especially interested in Ames Mill in Northfield, Minnesota [4]. ? 1987 ISAST Pergamon Journals Ltd. Printed in Great Britain. LEONARDO, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 273-279,1987 0024-094X/87 $3.00+0.00 . -l .... : ...:. .... .... ...:..... .... ...... ....... Fig. 2. In the Chair Demonstration, an object that looks like a chair is observed Fig. 3. In the Rotating Trapezoid Demonstration, a cutout of a through a peephole (a). However, when viewed from another position, what trapezoid is painted so as to appear to be a rectangular window in appeared to be a chair is revealed to be merely an assembly of odd and nonsensical perspective. When rotated on a motorized shaft, the trapezoid shapes (b). appears to be a rectangular window that is swaying back and forth. His father was General Adelbert Ames, position. The number of the colored card form on the back of the eye. Before Ames U.S. Senator and Governor of Mississippi was recorded on the canvas and, after went off to war, they attempted un- [5]. numerous features of the landscape had successfully to measure the sensitivity to Ames was educated at Harvard been matched with corresponding color color of different regions of the retina University, from which he was swatches, granted the a appropriate paint would be [19]. Bachelor of Arts degree in 1903 and a filled in [13]. They also used these cards In 1919, when Ames returned to his Bachelor of Law in 1906. For 4 years, he indoors while painting still lifes [14]. research, he worked with a Dartmouth worked as a lawyer in Boston [6]. In 1914, Ames was granted a research physicist, Charles A. Proctor. Together, In 1910, Ames abandoned the practice fellowship in physiological optics at assisted by Blanche Ames, they in- of law because he was "disillusioned in Clark University in Worcester, Massa- vestigated the characteristics of retinal the law and disappointed in love" [7]. Hechusetts. During World War I, he served images with the aim of inventing a may have studied painting in Boston. Forin the U.S. Signal Corps as a captain and 'binocular camera' which would simulate part of 1912 at least, he spent a large aerial observer, his tour of duty lasting not merely a retinal image but what Ames amount of time in North Easton, from 1917 to 1919 [15]. referred to as a 'mental visual image', the Massachusetts (20 miles south of Boston), In 1919, Ames resumed his research in superimposition of two retinal images, where he tried to learn Lo paint with physiological his optics, which he now which he assumed was in the brain. The older sister, Blanche Ames Ames, a conducted not at Clark University but at early results of these efforts (including a botanical illustrator and the wife of the Dartmouth College in Hanover, New 'binocular photograph') were published in Harvard botanist Oakes Ames [8]. Hampshire. Two years later, Dartmouth 1923 in a paper entitled "Vision and the Another sister, Jesse Ames, was also a appointed him a research professor in Technique of Art" [20]. painter, described by one observer as "an optics, a position he retained until he was At that time, it was Ames' belief that it inspired amateur of extraordinary power" 66 years old [16]. should be the goal of an artist to depict, as [9]. accurately as possible, the way a scene In his own words, Ames' goal as an would appear to one's eyes if one's gaze artist was "to make exact color re- III. FROM ART TO were affixed to a stationary focal point productions of scenes" [10]. To this end, PHYSIOLOGICAL OPTICS [21]. he and his sister Blanche devised one of When Ames first became engaged In anin ideal painting, according to the first color notation systems, which research, he may not have had the Ames, only those objects that happen to involved the mixing and categorizing of intention of abandoning painting, al- fall within the center of interest (which more than 3,300 discernibly different though as it happened he never took it up need not be the center of the painting) color variations, consisting of 27 hues, 15 again [17]. By one account, he developed would be clearly focused and shown in gradations in value, and 10 steps in an interest in physiological optics "as a detail. All other parts of the painting intensity (or chroma) for each hue [11]. result of his consideration of the artist's would be blurred, more or less, including By comparison, the Munsell Color need to see objectively and the relation- those that are horizontally and vertically System, published as an atlas in 1915, ship of that need to the underlying peripheral and those that are nearer or contains only 1,200 color variations [12]. properties of vision" [18]. farther away. Like a mental visual image When painting outdoor landscapes, As early as 1913, when Ames was (two retinal images superimposed), such Ames and his sister would hold in the air supposedly learning to paint, he was an artwork would be characterized by the color sample that seemed to be most already working with J.W. Baird, a Clark barrel distortion (because of the curve of similar to the color of each section of the University psychologist, in the hope of the retinal plane), chromatic aberrations outdoor scene, as viewed from a constant defining the attributes of the pictures that (because of the differing wave lengths) 274 Behrens, Adelbert Ames, Jr. make errors in judging the size, shape and location of objects. Initially, deformation of the eyes was not suspected as the cause, since the symptoms of aniseikonia (nausea, headache, uneasiness) were commonly thought to be signs of neurosis and other emotional disturbances [27]. Ames discovered aniseikonia in 1926. Throughout the following decade, he examined the eyes of hundreds of patients "from all over the country and also from abroad" who were thought to be aniseikonic [28]. He published a series of technical papers in journals of optics and ophthalmology [29], and he secured the patents for approximately 15 instruments intended for use in the diagnostic measurement and treatment of ani- seikonia [30].