OXFORD.- Thinking 3D: From Leonardo to the Present, a new exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, explores how artists and scientists have learned to convey three-dimensional objects on the page over the last 500 years. This unique exhibition features rare drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, displaying his virtuoso talent for representing 3D observations and ideas in graphic form, and showcases some of the Bodleian Libraries’ finest books, manuscripts, prints and drawings.

Thinking 3D shows how technological advances, from the invention of the printing press and new illustration techniques to photography, stereoscopy and 3D modeling, have allowed authors and artists to share their ideas with the world.

For centuries artists, illustrators and scientists have wrestled with the challenge of how to communicate three dimensions on two dimensional media. How did architects show plans for buildings and represent 3D objects on paper? How were observations of astronomy and the natural world realistically depicted? The exhibition shows how new techniques revolutionised the way that ideas in the fields of anatomy, architecture, astronomy and geometry were relayed and ultimately how this has influenced how we perceive the world today.

Timed to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, Thinking 3D shows how Leonardo and his contemporaries made great strides in the realistic depiction of 3D forms. Art and science come together in this exhibition, which will appeal to anyone interested in the history of technology, ideas and communication.

Co-curators Daryl Green, Librarian at Magdalen College, Oxford and Dr Laura Moretti, Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of St Andrews, said: “Thinking 3D explores how art, technology and science have influenced each other over the centuries, allowing three-dimensional concepts and observations to be shared from the mind of the author to the mind of the reader, and dramatically expanding our understanding of the world around us.”

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• The first ever printed illustration of an icosidodecahedron, a complex geometric shape, which featured in the only book that Leonardo illustrated in his lifetime, Divina Proportione (1509)

• Leonardo’s ground-breaking drawings, lent by Her Majesty The Queen from the Royal Collection and from the British Library, showing his ability to ‘think on paper’ and explain 3D problems with 2D media

• Extraordinary anatomical books that used flaps and pop-up features to educate people about the human body

• Striking illustrations of the moon that Galileo produced based on his first observations of the lunar surface through a telescope in 1609

• The first geological map of Mars produced from data from NASA’s Mariner 9 mission in 1971-72

• A specially commissioned 3D model of a 17th century geometric statue housed at the University of Oxford’s History of Science Museum

• Small tactile 3D models of geometric shapes that visitors can handle

Visitors to Thinking 3D will also be able to use the Codescope on loan from Bill Gates. The Codescope is an interactive way to explore The Codex Leicester, one of Leonardo’s notebooks which focuses on water and its properties. By using a digital touchscreen, visitors can turn the pages of a virtual version of The Codex Leicester and can explore transcriptions, translations and animations that explain more about Leonardo’s work.
Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, said: “Thinking 3D is a rare opportunity to learn from some of history’s greatest artists and thinkers who turned three-dimensional communication into a highly skilled art. This fascinating exhibition also showcases the pioneering work of modern practitioners and researchers from the University of Oxford in the fields of anatomy, architecture, astronomy and geometry.”