TheDroste effect (Dutch pronunciation:[ˈdrɔstə]), known in art as an example ofmise en abyme, is the effect of a picturerecursively appearing within itself, in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear. This produces a loop which in theory could go on forever, but in practice only continues as far as the image's resolution allows.
The effect is named afterDroste, a Dutch brand ofcocoa, with an image designed by Jan Misset in 1904. The Droste effect has since been used in the packaging of a variety of products. Apart from advertising, the effect is also seen in the Dutch artistM. C. Escher's 1956 lithographPrint Gallery, which portrays a gallery that depicts itself. The effect has been widely used on the covers ofcomic books, mainly in the 1940s.
TheDroste effect is named after the image on the tins and boxes ofDrostecocoa powder which displayed a nurse carrying a serving tray with a cup of hot chocolate and a box with the same image, designed by Jan Misset.[2] This familiar image was introduced in 1904 and maintained for decades with slight variations from 1912 by artists includingAdolphe Mouron. The poet and columnist Nico Scheepmaker introduced wider usage of the term in the late 1970s.[3]
The appearance isrecursive: the smaller version contains an even smaller version of the picture, and so on.[4] Only in theory could this go on forever, asfractals do; practically, it continues only as long as theresolution of the picture allows, which is relatively short, since each iterationgeometrically reduces the picture's size.[5][6]
The Droste effect was anticipated byGiotto early in the 14th century, in hisStefaneschi Triptych. The altarpiece portrays in its centre panelCardinalGiacomo Gaetani Stefaneschi offering the triptych itself toSt. Peter.[7] There are also several examples from medieval times of books featuring images containing the book itself or window panels in churches depicting miniature copies of the window panel itself.[8]
_c.1330_220x245cm._Pinacoteca%2c_Vatican..jpg)
_-_WGA09356.jpg)
The Dutch artistM. C. Escher made use of the Droste effect in his 1956 lithographPrint Gallery, which portrays a gallery containing a print which depicts the gallery, each time both reduced and rotated, but with a void at the centre of the image. The work has attracted the attention of mathematicians includingHendrik Lenstra. They devised a method of filling in the artwork's central void in an additional application of the Droste effect by successively rotating and shrinking an image of the artwork.[4][9][10]
In the 20th century, the Droste effect was used to market a variety of products. The packaging ofLand O'Lakes butter featured aNative American woman holding a package of butter with a picture of herself.[4]Morton Salt similarly made use of the effect.[11] The cover of the 1969 vinyl albumUmmagumma byPink Floyd shows the band members sitting in various places, with a picture on the wall showing the same scene, but the order of the band members rotated.[12] The logo ofThe Laughing Cow cheese spread brand pictures a cow with earrings. On closer inspection, these are seen to be images of the circular cheese spread package, each bearing the image of the mascot itself.[4]The Droste effect is a theme inRussell Hoban's children's novel,The Mouse and His Child, appearing in the form of a label on a can of "Bonzo Dog Food" which depicts itself.[13][14]
The Droste effect has been a motif for the cover ofcomic books for many years, known as an "infinity cover". Such covers were especially popular during the 1940s. Examples includeBatman #8 (December 1941–January 1942),Action Comics #500 (October 1979), andBongo Comics Free For All! (2007 ed.).Little Giant Comics #1 (July 1938) is said to be the first-published example of an infinity cover.[15]
Around the year 1900 the illustration of the "nurse" appeared on Droste's cocoa tins. This is most probably invented by the commercial artist Jan (Johannes) Musset [misspelling for Misset], who had been inspired by a pastel of the Swiss painter Jean Etienne Liotard "La serveuse de chocolat", also known as "La belle chocolatière".
By putting a picture inside a picture, you get a progression of successively smaller, but self-similar images (the box of Droste cocoa has a picture of a woman holding a box of Droste cocoa... ). In theory, this nesting could go on forever into infinite detail, but in practical terms, the resolution of the image limits how it's actually drawn.
.jpg)
