Plate catalogueEleven platesReduce them yourself

The apparatus

The bench below is the same code that renders every plate in the exhibition. Choose a work, choose an algorithm, and destroy it at whatever resolution you like.

Melencolia I, Albrecht Dürer, 1514
Plate

Melencolia I · Albrecht Dürer, 1514 · Engraving

Algorithm

Ordered dithering against a fixed 8×8 matrix. The grid is regular, so the image acquires a woven texture that was never in the original. The threshold shifts the whole matrix, so ink coverage still swings widely.

Cell size4 px
Threshold0.50
Contrast1.08
Ink coverage

The share of the plate given over to ink. Change algorithm and drag the threshold: on Floyd–Steinberg this figure will hardly move, because the algorithm spends all its error correcting you.

Rendered live · nothing here is a pre-made image


Catalogue

PL.01 Portrait of a Man (Il Condottiere)
Antonello da Messina
1475
Oil on panel
Room I
Musée du Louvre, Paris
PL.02 Portrait of a Young Man
Bronzino
1530s
Oil on wood
Room I
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
PL.03 Marble bust of Herodotos
Roman, after a Greek original
2nd century AD
Marble
Room I
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
PL.04 Melencolia I
Albrecht Dürer
1514
Engraving
Room II
PL.05 Knight, Death and the Devil
Albrecht Dürer
1513
Engraving
Room II
National Gallery of Art, Washington
PL.06 Saint Jerome in His Study
Albrecht Dürer
1514
Engraving
Room II
National Gallery of Art, Washington
PL.07 The Vitruvian Man
Leonardo da Vinci
c. 1490
Pen and ink on paper
Room III
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
PL.08 Portrait bust of the emperor Gaius, known as Caligula
Roman
AD 37–41
Marble
Room III
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
PL.09 Battle scene (detail), from the Legend of the True Cross
Piero della Francesca
c. 1452–66
Fresco
Room IV
Basilica of San Francesco, Arezzo
PL.10 Portrait bust of a woman
Roman
1st century AD
Marble
Room IV
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
PL.11 Portrait of a Young Man (detail of the face)
Bronzino
1530s
Oil on wood
Room IV
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

All eleven works are in the public domain or released CC0 — see the colophon.