This chapter explains the use of the Camera Obscura in drawing, emphasizing its ease of application and enjoyment. It discusses the initial plan to let readers explore using the camera but acknowledges the challenges in its mechanical construction, requiring experimentation. The chapter aims to spare readers the effort by describing two machines intended as practical and pleasant.
Chapter Eight.
Description and Use of the Camera Obscura for Drawing. By Mr. G. J. s'Gravesande.
Everyone knows how easily one can represent natural objects inside a dark place using a single convex lens; the vividness of colors and variety of movements make this spectacle very pleasant. Moreover, it is so easy to apply this invention to the Art of Drawing that it initially seems unnecessary to discuss this matter as extensively as we intend to in this chapter. A few observations suffice for a keen reader to understand and apply some machine for the purposes merely indicated. One could leave the pleasure of invention after making it accessible. This was the initial plan, but at the same time, it was considered that in the mechanical construction of a machine designed to facilitate drawing, it was impossible to foresee several things that only experience can teach, necessitating long-term experimentation with several methods before finding a simple and useful one. As this path has already been traveled, we felt it necessary to spare others this effort, convinced that they would with pleasure see here the description of two machines which we hope to have made as practical as they are pleasant.