ESPRIT JOUFFRET

Esprit Jouffret’s Elementary Treatise on the Geometry of Four Dimensions, published in 1903, was an act of great heroics.  In the book, he drew hypercubes and polyhedra, all in an effort to draw in the 4th dimension.  Some of Jouffret’s most famous drawings in quest of the 4th dimension are included below.

Although I had not read this anywhere else, Wikipedia states that Jouffret’s book was given to Picasso and thus was a great influence on his work.  In fact, Jouffret’s concepts and diagrams are referenced in Picasso’s sketchbooks.

So I thought it would be fun to see what might happen if the basic geometry of Jouffret’s forms were approached transparently.  As I was drawing lines on my paper, I was trying to maintain a close fidelity with his drawings.  I really wanted to see how these might either truly exist in the 4th dimension or serve as a nice inspiration for a very interesting Euclidian three dimensional form.

Actually, I failed the fidelity quest.  For as a transparent drawer, I HAVE to move toward full three dimensional realization.  And I found that if a few lines are introduced, then these assemblies indeed become something that can be built with three ordinary dimensions.  Sure, some of the panes might have to be warped.

For my drawing at the top of the page, I used the figure second from the top on the right.  For my drawing below I used the top right figure.  Additional thoughts on drawing in the 4th dimension can be found at the page The Fourth Dimension.