1. What have these two got in common?
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Reasons why PowerPoint is an outstanding tool for topic introductions:
Flexibility in adding and updating information, editing content, differentiating for higher or lower achieving groups
Focus for whole class teaching
Motivational and can add humour with animation and sound effects
You can record a voice narration or add background music
Can use Pack and Go wizard (which can include a viewer for PCs that don’t have the program) to transfer and share
The presentation can easily be saved as web pages for the school website or network
Pupils can use it for research in their own time
Examples of pupil outcomes could be added at the end of the project
It could then be used on parents’ evenings to showcase pupils’ work, either running automatically or browsed by individuals in kiosk mode
For whole class presentations if no data projector is available, the computer can be connected to a large screen TV monitor (if the monitor does not have a video output a viewer/adapter can be purchased for about £50. For details go to It’s called Aver Televiewer (code ZY14Q). Or get a VGA converter from
If no other technology is available the slides can be printed on OHT transparencies
The presentation can be printed and photocopied as handouts for reference.

2. Hans Holbein the Younger The Ambassadors
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Anamorphosis

3. The Ambassadors, 1533 The full title is
Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, the French Ambassadors

4. The portrait was painted to celebrate the reunion of two wealthy young friends, who were ambassadors from the French Court
The picture is full of symbols and hidden meanings

5. Click your mouse for the labels to appear
Symbolism 1
The objects in the painting are highly symbolic. Although there is no single reading or interpretation of their meanings, the rich fabrics and furs worn by the two men together with the display of their possessions suggest wealth, power and learning.
The instruments on the top shelf relate to astronomy and time-keeping, symbolising heaven, spirituality, religion, mortality. The globe is celestial too.
The instruments on the lower shelf are mathematical and musical, including a terrestrial globe, and symbolise earthly pleasures. Some are instruments for mapping and measuring, representing the contemporary exploration of the New World (the Renaissance period saw the beginning of colonisation, the slave trade and the import of exotic goods).
On close inspection the lute has a broken string and may be a reference to strong religious divisions of the time.
The crucifix hidden behind the green curtain at the top left corner symbolises the hope of resurrection after death.
Click your mouse for the labels to appear

6. Symbolism 2
The most mysterious and important symbol in the picture is also hidden – this time by a deliberate distortion. The technique is called Anamorphosis. If you stand at a sharp angle close to the painting, the strange oblong shape floating in the foreground is seen to be a skull. The skull was a popular symbol of death or mortality, often called a “momento mori” – i.e. a reminder to people that life is short. Holbein may have painted the anamorphosis to conceal political meanings in his work. It is said that the distorted skull was not recognised until 1873, three hundred years after it was painted.

7. Anamorphic drawing
Anamorphosis derives from a Greek word meaning to transform or change shape
It is a distorted image that appears in its true shape only when viewed from a certain oblique angle
It can only be viewed correctly by one person at a time
Holbein may have used a grid to construct the distortion

8. The Geometry of Anamorphosis
In the seventeenth century a French monk called Jean-François Niceron wrote a book on anamorphosis
He worked out a grid for producing anamorphic pictures

9. Leonardo Da Vinci was also interested in the technique.
These drawings were found in his sketchbooks:

10. Why didn’t Leonardo use the technique in his paintings?
Although Leonardo is credited with inventing anamorphosis and was interested in other forms of radical perspective, he understood that they were not practical as a painting technique because of the restrictions on the viewer. He wrote, “It is well therefore to avoid such complex perspective which does not regard planes as foreshortened but as much as possible in their proper form”, Codex Atlanticus.
Can you suggest any reasons?

11. Other Renaissance artists
William Scrots, 1546
The National Portrait Gallery, London
William Scrots’ portrait is of Edward VI
Van Hoogstraten’s Peepshow Box can be seen at the National Gallery, London. His boxes were made of wood with one side missing to allow light to enter and small viewing holes. To maintain the illusion of depth images had to be painted on different panels as demonstrated by the picture of the dog.
Van Hoogstraten’s peepshow box
The National Gallery, London

12. Other uses of Anamorphosis
Anamorphosis is often used in road markings: here the signs are stretched to be read correctly by a driver.
Advertising logos painted on the grass for rugby matches are designed to be read correctly from the angle of TV cameras.

13. Contemporary art 1
The Vauxhall Station mural in London was designed by William Pye in 1986
Unfortunately, it was destroyed during refurbishment in 2002
It consisted of four different anamorphic images, which needed to be viewed from four different locations, marked on the floor

14. Contemporary art 2
"Passing Through" was designed by Colin Wilbourn in 1997
It ‘s part of the St Peter’s Riverside Sculpture Project in Tyne and Wear
This anamorphic galleon is sited on the bank of the river Wear

15. Year 8 pupil work

16. Can you find other examples of anamorphosis?
artwork
illustration
road-markings
advertising