A few years ago, we were talking about the anamorphic sculptures of Jonty Hurwitz. I propose you to discover the latest creations of this South African artist, whose strange and stretched shapes reveal their secrets when observed with a cylindrical mirror. An impressive work that mixes 3D modeling of anamorphosis, resin molds, bronze sculptures and paint! We also talked about the creations of Jonty Hurwitz with Micron Sculptures and The Fragile Giant, the smallest human sculptures ever made.

Constantly balancing between science and art, Jonty Hurwitz comes back with his mind-bending anamorphic sculptures.

Ausgabe 01/2017

London artist Jonty Hurwitz (previously) revels in the skewed and twisted world of anamorphic artwork, where the meaning of a dramatically warped figures is only revealed when reflected against a viewing device, in this case a cylindrical mirror. While Leonardo da Vinci is credited for creating the first known definitive example of anamorphosis in the 15th century, Hurwitz pieces are infused with modern technology, relying on digital renderings which are painstakingly transformed into physical objects cast from bronze, copper, or plaster. In more recent pieces he’s even begun to apply oil painting as a final touch.

Jonty Hurwitz est un artiste sud-africain au parcours professionnel très atypique. Sa formation d’ingénieur obtenue à l’université de Johannesburg ne le prédestinait pas devenir un artiste, et pourtant. En s’appuyant sur son passé scientifique et sa connaissance des algorithmes, il parvient à créer d’époustouflantes illusions d’optique, en partant de sculptures totalement abstraites qui jouent autant sur l’anamorphose que sur jeu de réflexion d’un miroir.

London-based artist Jonty Hurwitz transforms warped digital renderings into incredible anamorphic sculptures made out of bronze, copper, plaster and paint. “Anamorphosis” relates to purposeful distortions that depend on an additional device or precise vantage point to reconstruct the image. In Hurwitz’s case, cylindrical mirrors reveal each sculptures true form. See more below!

Anamorfoza, bo do tegoż słowa odnosi się powyższy tytuł, pojawiła się na KWP już kilka lat temu, wzbudzając ku mojemu zaskoczeniu niczym nieskrępowany entuzjazm czytelników. Początkowo zainteresowanie tłumaczyłem sobie mocno clickbaitowym tytułem (takie uwielbiam najbardziej), ale pomimo dość nachalnego zachęcenia do odwiedzenia wspomnianego wpisu, mając ponad pięciokrotnie mniej stałych czytelników niż obecnie, zauważyłem, że i tak zdecydowali się go udostępnić ponad 200 razy. Jak będzie tym razem? I co to właściwie jest ta anamorfoza?

Some sculptors long and hard to turn lifeless blocks of stone in the delights of fine art, others, however, prefer to work with a malleable and soft clay, which in a matter of hours allows to realize a flight of fancy wizard. But there is such as Jonty Hurwitz who produces billions of computer calculations, before to proceed with the materialization his ideas.
Mr. Hurwitz was born in 1969 in Johannesburg. Today he lives and works in London.
He calls himself a Renaissance artist and constantly complains technology has taken away from humanity’s sense of beauty, replacing his all-consuming sense of superiority, flavored with greatness, selfishness and permissiveness, which are called illusory and limiting modern people as individuals. However, he recognizes that technology is a necessity – the essence of progress, without which we would have returned to the stone age.

Johannesburg artist/engineer Jonty Hurwitz fuses science and art in this series of mind bending sculptures. We've covered anamorphic art before, but what makes this approach so unique is that rather than force the user to one particular vantage point, Hurwitz uses complex algorithms and computer software to generate distorted 3D models, which are then fashioned from copper and placed around a cylindrical stainless steel tube. 

The painting The Ambassadors (1533) by Bavaria-born artist Hans Holbein the Younger (c.1497–1543) occupies a special place in the history of Western art. It features Jean de Dinteville (French Ambassador to the court of Henry VIII of England) and Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur (in southern France). Important elements include an Azerbaijanian rug and mathematical instruments like dials and quadrants. The artwork remains most famous, however, for a strange momento mori in the foreground, at the bottom – a human skull – tilted, contracted, stretched. Visible in its correct form only when seen from an oblique point of view. This is an example of “anamorphosis” – a distorted projection of an object that is set right when regarded from a specific perspective or when reflected on another surface.

George Beck of Wolfram Research drew my attention to the website of the London artist Jonty Hurwitz: Wild New Anamorphic Sculptures From the Warped Mind of Jonty Hurwitz. And I went on to see what could be done using the Graphic capabilities of Mathematica...

Скульптура Джонти Гурвица (Jonty Hurwitz) меньше толщины человеческого волоса была случайно уничтожена невнимательным фотографом. По словам художника, он обратился в лабораторию, имеющую электронный микроскоп, чтобы сфотографировать свои работы.