Did Dutch Master Artist Vermeer Get Help From Technology/ Use A Camera Obscura?

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groveChuck

U-matic Member
Anyone remember the Video Toaster??? (and the shade and cartwheel wipes?!)

In this doc, its inventor Tim Jenison spends years, learns Dutch, masters the art of pigment-making, makes a camera obscura, takes years to paint a painting, all to try to figure out, "How did Vermeer do it?"
Artistry meets technology?
It was the age of lenses, and the Netherlands was ground zero.

Rembrandt may have perfected chiaroscuro, but there's not only light and shadow (and color) to get right.
Vermeer has some not-seen-elsewhere shallow DOF in some of his works.

I can't wait to see this...

Narrated by Penn (the big one), directed by Teller (the silent one). Shot on DSLR?

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tims-vermeer-2013
To say, of Vermeer's work, that there necessarily had to be some kind of trick to it, initially seems insulting to both the painter himself and to certain mythologized notions concerning artistic talent versus artistic genius and a lot of other things. But painting, like writing, like almost anything really, is not entirely a "creative" exercise; it's also a technical one. No great novel ever got written by mere force of inspiration, nor has any great painting merely been willed into being. And so, for years, certain artists and scientists have devoted a great deal of time and energy to the question: "How did Vermeer do it?"...

One is reminded of Vladimir Nabokov invoking "the passion of the scientist and the precision of the artist.
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Finally saw this a few days ago- incredible!!!

Tim is brilliant, a modern-day renaissance man, and just... a... bit... obsessive.

He builds the tools to make the tool and set to make the painting. By himself. Learning carpentry, machining and other trades in the process...

And then when he captures the light coming through a window exactly like the Vermeer painting, it's mind-boggling!

A little Herzogian in a man obsessed...

If you like docs on quirky characters, see this!
 
Watch this doc where still living great painter of XX century - David Hockney (he's seen briefly in the trailer too) - talks about how painters started using optical aids around 1420s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKbFZIpNK10

Also a side note, no one who actually went to art school (i did) considers Vermeer "greatest painter of all time."
 
groveChuck said:
Finally saw this a few days ago- incredible!!!

Tim is brilliant, a modern-day renaissance man, and just... a... bit... obsessive.

He builds the tools to make the tool and set to make the painting. By himself. Learning carpentry, machining and other trades in the process...

And then when he captures the light coming through a window exactly like the Vermeer painting, it's mind-boggling!

A little Herzogian in a man obsessed...

If you like docs on quirky characters, see this!
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He is impressive, but Vermeer is much more impressive. This guy has the aid of computers and modern knowledge to try and recreate what someone did hundreds of years ago.

Patryk_Rebisz said:
Also a side note, no one who actually went to art school (i did) considers Vermeer "greatest painter of all time."
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Complete nonsense. People can consider whomever they want the best painter ever. Just because you went to art school you suddenly have the correct answers?
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
By similar logic you as qualified to heal people as a doctor who spent years studying human body.
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False analogy. Our bodies, for the most part, follow a set of rules that can be defined. Doctors, therefore, must learn this mass amount of information to be able to treat people correctly. Art is not a science, it cannot be learned simply by reading a book and there are not strict rules like there are in the body. In medicine, you make a mistake and your patient will suffer. In art, a "mistake" might actually be the thing that connects to the audience and turns an otherwise forgettable work into something people respond to.
 
jghenderson said:
False analogy. Our bodies, for the most part, follow a set of rules that can be defined. Doctors, therefore, must learn this mass amount of information to be able to treat people correctly. Art is not a science, it cannot be learned simply by reading a book and there are not strict rules like there are in the body. In medicine, you make a mistake and your patient will suffer. In art, a "mistake" might actually be the thing that connects to the audience and turns an otherwise forgettable work into something people respond to.
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You probably didn't spent years studying art so you might not be aware that there is a crap load of "rules." They are not as permanent as the ones related to our body because the historical context and culture keeps on changing thus changing the "rules." One's ignorance of those rules doesn't make those rules disappear.
 
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Patryk_Rebisz said:
You probably didn't spent years studying art so you might not be aware that there is a crap load of "rules." They are not as permanent as the ones related to our body because the historical context and culture keeps on changing thus changing the "rules." One's ignorance of those rules doesn't make those rules disappear.
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Yes, but the basic rule is 'buy wall space in a significant gallery, and one is thereby declared an 'artist''. This is a minor point taught in artschool, the graduates of which usually become art teachers in a K-12 setting, perhaps a junior college, or as most of my friends at the time who received their MFAs, lead to social work, or computer programming.

Occasionally... rarely... there is someone who comes along who gets wall space 'for free' at a significant gallery... but that's about as rare as the billion dollar lottery winner... or selling one's first spec script in Hollywood for 6-7 digit prices.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Yes, but the basic rule is 'buy wall space in a significant gallery, and one is thereby declared an 'artist''. This is a minor point taught in artschool, the graduates of which usually become art teachers in a K-12 setting, perhaps a junior college, or as most of my friends at the time who received their MFAs, lead to social work, or computer programming.

Occasionally... rarely... there is someone who comes along who gets wall space 'for free' at a significant gallery... but that's about as rare as the billion dollar lottery winner... or selling one's first spec script in Hollywood for 6-7 digit prices.
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Where does unsubstantiated cynicism lead?
 
jghenderson said:
He is impressive, but Vermeer is much more impressive. This guy has the aid of computers and modern knowledge to try and recreate what someone did hundreds of years ago. ...
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I tried to recreate one logotype which I did 20 years ago because of no data. I thought that would be a piece of cake for me, but it wasnt. Instead I was overwhelmed how sophisticated and intricated I was then. ;)
 
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Patryk_Rebisz said:
You probably didn't spent years studying art so you might not be aware that there is a crap load of "rules." They are not as permanent as the ones related to our body because the historical context and culture keeps on changing thus changing the "rules." One's ignorance of those rules doesn't make those rules disappear.
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You're being sarcastic, right? I've always thought you to be a very intelligent person, I have a hard time believing you would say something so restrictive and silly as what you've written.
 
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