Title: Lightning-illuminated gunfire shadowgram (oil painting)

Description: This painting is inspired by the cover art of 1930s pulp detective fiction like The Shadow. Here a criminal being pursued in a lightning-storm ducks behind a cinder-block building, then re-emerges to fire at his pursuers. At the instant of firing the gun, overhead lightning illuminates the gunshot and cast a microsecond shadowgram of the muzzle blast and transonic bullet on the block wall. This is a painting in my series depicting what an artist sees, if that artist is also a fluid-dynamicist. It also exemplifies shock waves in art (see reference). 16x20" oil on canvas board, 2011.

Credits:

References: Kleine, H. and Settles, G. S., "The art of shock waves and their flowfields," Shock Waves, 17(5):291-307, 2008.

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Contributed By: Gary S. Settles