A pinacogram is a portrait designed
with the letters of the corresponding name.
Although I drew the first ones during the summer of
2005, and although I proposed the term pinacogram
at the same time, the concept itself is not fully
new. Indeed, designing with letters or digits is a
known drawing exercise, and I remember that my mother
(an art professor) taught it at least thirty years ago.
Arabic calligraphy is also well known
for its superb drawings in which one may actually decipher
full verses. I rediscovered the idea in 2003 while reading
an article by Alain Chevrier in the French review
Formules
(no. 7, p. 32), devoted to the
sketches drawn by the poet Robert Desnos with the
letters of his friends' names. Most of them were
landscapes, still lifes, or objects, but one of them
was already a schematic human face (not precise enough
to look like the corresponding friend, though).
I immediately designed a few human figures with the
letters of some of my friends' names
(Robert Rapilly,
Estelle Souche,
Stéphane &
Béatrice Susana), but no resemblance
with their actual faces was looked for. I came up
with the idea of an almost realistic portrait
during the summer of 2005, and although this
happens to be a quite difficult work (several
hours of subtle improvements for each pinacogram),
I do like the graphical result. This is
the reason why I devote a Web page to this concept
and my present examples. There are still very few
of them, because of the time needed to design them,
but I intend to draw more in the future.
To design pinacograms, a similar way of
looking at the letters is required as for
ambigrams.
Indeed, one needs to recognize approximate
letters in the face of a friend, in a similar
way one needs to recognize deformed letters
in an inverted word. The fact that I already
designed ambigrams for many years explains
thus why the idea of pinacograms was rather
natural to me.
Like ambigrams again,
pinacograms are constrained drawings, in
which there is a limited number of lines that one may
use, connected in a very special way, and for which all
given letters must be used. This is reminiscent of the
precepts of OuLiPo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle,
in French), an international group of writers and mathematicians
who explore all kinds of literary constraints. I wrote
many more constrained texts than I
designed pinacograms or even ambigrams, but they are in French.
Notes added in January 2006:
I realized that in his 1967 Nobel lecture,
Miguel Angel Asturias already used
the Spanish neologism pinacograma for the
paintings used by the Aztecs and Mayas to encode their tales.
This word does not exist more in Spanish than in English
(nor French), and he probably meant pictograma,
as suggested by the
English translation of the same Nobel lecture.
I also realized that the Brazilian artist
Roberto Fernández
had already designed wonderful portraits using letters,
in which some words can directly be read on the faces,
without any need for reordering their letters! His work
is infinitely subtler than my humble drawings below,
and I understand why it was awarded several prizes in
South America and Europe. Although he does not use the
names of the different persons to design their faces,
his virtuosity proves anyway that he could have easily
done so. For instance, he even managed to
translate in English
the words used in his portraits (but I confess I prefer
the original Portuguese ones).
On his Argentinian website
"juegos de ingenio",
Iván Skvarca had already mentioned
in September 2003 the above fantastic drawings by
Roberto Fernández.
He also displayed in June 2005 a
portrait of the Belgian
caricaturist Jan Op De Beek by his Ecuatorian
colleague Andrés Rivadeneira Toledo
("Vidal"),
whose basic idea is extremely close to my own drawings below (with the
difference that it uses colors and superposes some of the letters).
The Colombian ambigraphist
Alberto Portacio Apicella also drew my attention to
his literal portrait
by the same Rivadeneira (using repeated & superposed letters).
On a pedagogical site in Spanish, where he kindly mentioned
my pinacograms, Iván Skvarca also gathered a very nice
collection of links to drawings using letters.
In April 2006, the Chilean ambigraphist
Homero Larrain
designed a superb
self-portrait as a pinacogram. In September 2012, the Scottish illustrator
Steve Carroll
informed me that he also designs pinacograms
– that he calls "Letterheads".
Here is his wonderful series entitled
"My type of people". In February 2014, I found by chance on the
Web this remarkable portrait of
a cat and a mouse by the artist
Margaret Shepherd. In July 2015, the French artist Didier-Carol Porcher
informed me that he is also drawing portraits with letters
since 1992, that he calls
"anagrams of
Merlin".
Italo Calvino
Great Italian novelist, and member of OuLiPo
This pinacogram was designed rather quickly
to illustrate the technique at a workshop.
[See also my ambigram of his name]
Miguel de Cervantes
Famous Spanish writer, author of Don Quixote, the first modern novel
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size]
Dante Alighieri
Famous Italian poet of the XIIIth century
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size.]
This pinacogram was designed rather quickly
to illustrate the technique at a workshop.
Albert Einstein
The most famous theoretical physicist, who notably published
three crucial articles one century ago
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Aimé Esposito-Farèse
French painter, theologian and educationist who was my father
Anna Esposito-Farèse
Portrait of my five-year-old daughter
Stereoscopic version: try to superpose the two blobs by looking
"farther than the screen", and the image will appear in 3 dimensions
[this is just a first & rough attempt to apply this idea to pinacograms].
New version for her 14th birthday:
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Gilles Esposito-Farèse
French theoretical physicist who loves playing with words,
and author of the present pinacograms
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
It is obvious that long names, such as mine, help for drawing
detailed pinacograms, but shorter ones may also give interesting results.
For instance, here is a quick attempt with my initials GEF:
This SVG animation runs smoother
than my older GIF version.
Sylvie Esposito-Farèse
French literature professor and secretary who is my sister
Gandhi
Indian humanist, pioneer of nonviolence and spiritual leader of Indiapendence
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Nicolas Graner
French computer scientist and witty player with words
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Exceptionally, the size of each letter is here changed
individually.
[See also my ambigrams of his name]
Douglas Hofstadter
Famous American scientist, author of several remarkable books
on cognition, translation, mathematics, literature, art, ambigrams,
and many other topics
Eugène Ionesco
Famous Franco-Romanian playwright
[Click on the image to shake the genius in an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Claire Jallois
French painter and art professor who is my mother
Lili
Name of my daughter's favorite doll
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Mona Lisa
After the most famous portrait by Leonardo da Vinci
[Click on the image to display a 'SVG'
animation
scaled to your window's size]
Bernard Magné
French professor of literature, and world's greatest specialist
of the writer Georges Perec
Note that the initials
constitute a crucial part of the profile.
[See also my ambigram of his name]
Minois
Name of my daughter's cat (which means "pretty face" in French)
Ian Monk
British translator, writer and member of OuLiPo
This minimalist pinacogram was designed quickly
to illustrate the technique at a workshop.
Note that this poet bears his initials
on his face, and notably an obvious capital M.
[See also my ambigram of his name]
Georges Perec
One of the greatest French novelists of the XXth century,
and member of OuLiPo
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Exceptionally, I changed the size of each individual
letter to write the name under the portrait, to avoid the
disproportion between the tiny o and the huge c.
In my other pinacograms, the names are written with strictly
the same letters as the portrait, globally reduced by 50%.
[See also
myfourprevious
"portraits"
of Perec, and my
ambigram of his name]
Jacques Perry-Salkow
French jazzman, author of superb constrained texts,
and notably of remarkable palindromes
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Planck satellite
European space observatory of the cosmic microwave
background, named after the great German physicist Max Planck.
This pinacogram was designed with the advice of my colleague
Jean Mouette, for
hismovie about this satellite.
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Exceptionally, the size of each letter is here changed
individually.
Robert Rapilly
French educationist and artist, virtuoso of palindromic poems
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
This pinacogram was designed rather quickly for Robert's
birthday, and it actually cheats with the rules: Not only the
initial R is built from four independent strokes,
but the letters are not clearly separated in the profile.
You may need to watch the animation
to locate them! Exceptionally, I wrote here the name with the
same size as the portrait (contrary to most of my other pinacograms
in which the names are reduced by 50%).
[See also my ambigram
of his name, and my first sketch
with its letters]
Chantal Robillard
French author of constrained short stories and poems
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Michel Rubin
French zoologist who is my brother-in-law
Marcela Saadia Otero
Argentinian physiotherapist who is my sister-in-law
Marina Saadia Otero
Argentinian mathematician who is my wife
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size.]
Note that her last name Otero constitutes
a recognizable fraction of her face:
For completeness, here is a reduced version of my first
attempt with her name
,
much weaker than the above pinacogram.
[See also my ambigram of her name]
Frédéric Schmitter
French creator of remarkable anagrams and palindromes
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Rémi Schulz
French modern cabalist, author of constrained literature and detective novels
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Rémi face au lacis doré
[Frédéric Schmitter
is the author of this title, which means Rémi in front
of the golden network,
but sounds in French like the musical scale of D:
ré mi fa sol la si do ré.]
Sheila
Portrait of my twelve-year-old niece
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Here the name is written with the same size as the
portrait (contrary to most of my other pinacograms in which
the names are reduced by 50%).
Valentin Villenave
French composer and pianist, creator of Oumupo (workshop of potential music)
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
The size of each letter is here changed individually.
[See also my ambigram of his name]
Alain Zalmanski
French chemist and puzzle collector who loves playing with words
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here is also the initial
Flash animation.]
Although the following portraits are not pinacograms, I gather
them here because they are anyway constrained drawings.
I designed them (more quickly than pinacograms) for some of my friends' birthdays.
Patrice Besnard
French researcher in pedagogical studies, magician and virtuoso of very hard
literary constraints
This reduced animation illustrates the graphic constraint:
[Click on the image to display an SVG animation
scaled to your window's size.
Here is also a less elegant SVG animation
with a constant-width line, but its file is only 4 KB!]
Thibault Damour
French theoretical physicist, one the world's
greatest specialists of general relativity
[Click on the image to display an
SVG animation
scaled to your window's size. Here
is also the initial
Flash animation,
and a larger static picture.
As above, a very light SVG animation
of only 5 KB is also possible with a less elegant constant-width line.]
Vase
Example of a well-known way to hide a profile in the shape of a vase
(The profile is here supposed to look like mine,
but deformed by the perspective ;-)