Carlotta Corpron

American
(1901–1988)

Untitled Light Study (b)
Circa 1945

Gelatin silver print
8 x 10 in.
Gift of the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation
2012.6

• abstract - Genre of visual arts in which figurative subjects or other forms are simplified or changed in their representation so that they do not portray a recognizable person, object, thing, etc.; may reference an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object. For the process of formulating general concepts by abstracting common properties of instances, prefer "abstraction." For 20th-century art styles that were a reaction against the traditional European conception of art as the imitation of nature, use "Abstract (fine arts style)."
• light - That portion of the electromagnetic spectrum visible to the human eye, having a wavelength in the range from about 4,000 (violet) to about 7,700 (red) angstroms and may be perceived by the normal unaided human eye. It ranges from the red end to the violet end of the spectrum, with wavelengths from 700 to 400 nanometres and frequencies from 4.3 x 1014 to 7.5 x 1014 Hz. Like all electromagnetic radiation, light travels through empty space at a speed of about 186,000 miles per second (300,000 km/sec). In the mid-19th century, light was described by James Clerk Maxwell in terms of electromagnetic waves, but 20th-century physicists have shown that it exhibits properties of particles as well; its carrier particle is the photon. Light is the basis for the sense of sight and for the perception of color.

• New Acquisitions - 2014 , 9/2/2014 - 1/9/2015

Photographs