Jan Vermeer and the Camera Obscura
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- Опубликовано: 7 мар 2012
- It has often been said that Jan Vermeer used a camera obscura to capture perspective in his paintings. Here is a short clip investigating whether this was true or not.
Music: Marc Koch - Open MInd
Thank goodness someone has made a high production-value, reasoned presentation of the overwhelming evidence countering the intriguing hypothesis that Vermeer used a camera obscura. I'm SO glad the makers did not descend into the irrelevant interpretations of what such a use might "mean." ("Was it cheating?" and so on, which distracts the minds of those who can't let facts and evidence get in their way or are too lazy to actually consider the rigorous counter evidence, or think that the pronouncements of an artist should be more highly valued than clear and un-refuted counter evidence.). I assign this short video to my university class, "Computer vision and image analysis of art." Some viewers (and commenters, below) ask "What does it matter?" It matters a LOT... perhaps not so much to the causal art aficionado, but for those of us who care profoundly about how art is made, how artists solved problems (like perspective, color, ...) and the history of art and science, it matters a LOT. (It also alerts us to visual evidence, thus affecting our direct understanding and appreciation of certain art.). As far as I can see, there's not a single scholar who accepts the "next" attempt at "revealing" Vermeer's 'secret knowledge,' and it would be great if Red City did a similar refutation of that.
The camera obscura ( dark room) was an optical device that created an image by focusing rays of light onto a screen or sheet of paper. it is described clearly in this video. It is still relevant today. Modern cameras are an advanced version of the camera obscura. The ancient Greeks knew this optical gadget.
I was just curious and looked through the images, what I was a bit struck by was how perfect the distances was and how little change it was in the angles of the images, now many assume that you need a lens and some device that you can move, but what you need is a dark room and a hole that you can move, or several holes that you can open or close, the dark room can be very large and the image can look brighter if you spend a day inside this box before you open the hole.
Another thing is that he do not become a bad artist just for use a camera obscura, that is just a faster way to arrange and sketch a image, a large part of great art is the arrangement and the content, how it was sketched is not very important, the hard part that need skill come after, and that is to make everything to look good, to ve able to mix the colors, make skin tones, fill in the details and so on.
I think it is a bit shalefull that folk look down on artist that may been using camera obscura, I see than as great artists too and you still need much skill to make great art.
Whatever Vermeer used he was an artistic genius!
I disagree. It is definitely cheating if you are tracing the image from a camera obscura. Of course getting the perspective and proportions right in a painting is not the only thing that matters but I definitely respect an artist more that doesn’t use some device to help them.
Vermeer decorated his studio to set up a scene. The original wooden floor could have been layered with another temporary one, maybe not even meant to walk on. But mainly I don't get this as a point against the Camera Obscura.
Also there is no point in assuming he didn't use optics in his camera obscura when there were camera obscuras with lenses and when optics were quite common in microscopes and telescopes. Anthony van Leeuwenhoek was born in the same year as Vermeer and used optics to study bacteria.
Oh, and Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek was the guy who took care of Vermeers posessions after his death, coincidence?
@@mrsid6581 They also belonged to the same guild in Delft
Wonderful and pretty accurate explanation. I came to believe as well that camera obscura cannot explain Vermeer´s work at all. Thanks for your video
Real sunlight has an infinite number of nuances, reflections and shade transitions, and the human eye cannot pick out and streamline all of them. Lenses and mirrors simplify this chaos of rays and reflections, organize it and create a specific flat image that can be analyzed and copied. That is why all the painters did not paint from nature at that time when the philosophers tried to determine the methods of scientific knowledge of truth, and the artists explored ways of reflecting reality in art. Some saw in lenses and mirrors a way of transferring reality to the canvas (the idea of an art as "a mirror of nature"), others, on the contrary, viewed these methods as "artistic fakes" (the Baroque idea of "an elusive reality"). Lorrain, who worked at the same time as Vermeer, is known for looking at landscapes through a special "Claude glass" while painting. Rembrandt, like all the other Dutchmen, painted "tronies" while looking at himself in the mirror. You can also find the mirror play in Velazquez' paintings. Many artists of the 16th and 17th centuries have also "revealed" their secret by painting distorted images taken from convex lenses (from Parmigianino to Elinga and Hoogstraten). One important feature of Vermeer's paintings makes it clear that he used lenses. It is the imitation of in-focus and out-of-focus effects. For example, in the "The Lacemaker" (Louvre), focus is visible on the embroidery, while the girl's face and figure is painted "out of focus" (maybe Leonardo's "sfumato" was also attempt to imitate this effect?). Of course, we don't know much about lenses from the Leeuwenhoek period, but I think a careful study of them will shed light on the painters' technique of that time. Anyway, when such artists as Turner and Monet began to paint in the open air, they already sought to depict their impressions and fantasies, and not what they actually saw, because real light cannot be depicted.
Thank you ,very illuminating
Vermeer was one of the artists that first caught my eye. No matter the out come of this discussion, he is still a master of light.
Why is Vermeer's technique being censored? It was a not a Obscura, but a glass that was held up straight infront of a canvas along with the pinhole lines
You make a very good case, however what about the physical pin-prick in the center of many of his paintings?
All artists use a number of techniques at the same time, using the mirror/lens method you have to move the mirror to go to the next section of canvas, it is easy to introduce an error, a pin and cord would be a quick way of verifying perspective all accurate.
David Hockney thinks otherwise, I'm a bit confused! Other artists too, Willem Kalf for example, have that photographic subtleties, that photographic look! It makes me wonder whether he also used a camera obscura !
I'm sure Carrivaggio used camera obscura in fact this was Chairoscuro. But even he Carrivaggio changed things, his painting of the Commanding General of Matla while gorgeous is a little off because his page is standing in front and behind him, this is due to the fact that he painted them separately, however it is clearly a work of camera obscura. Like some primeval Photoshop things could be changed but this was the technique.
CarAvaggio, ok ?
how do you know that there were no chess board floors in hollland at the time? And anyway. An artist of vermeer's standing could do them floors at a pinch!
They didn’t mean Holland but Vermeer’s house, where he painted and where he would have used camera obscura.
And paint a living room; -one coat, in an afternoon and not spill a drop!
Apologies: Kircher's Arts Magia Luce et Umbrae (1665) not (1885)!
His name is Johannes..
I totally agree with you. I don't think Vermeer used the camera obscure. He was a genius artistically. He hung around with Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek, another genius. I agree that Vermeer used perspective only. His paintings were so crisp and so lifelike the camera obscure would have made more work to build a larger painting. Could he have used one, yes, but I doubt it. By the way, where did you find out that he died of meningitis???
Vermeer's paintings are not crisp when viewed close up, in many cases there are no actual "edges" to objects but a soft blur, often with a hint of Lapis blue, a sort of corona (as you get from a slightly imperfect lens). Furthermore there is no underdrawing beneath the paint suggesting single point perspective was not the primary composition tool, simply a pin hole allowing a string to ensure the floor tiles are straight. The description "Photographic" used about Vermeer's work refers to the quality of light and tone he achieves, his paintings have ofter been likened to a still from a clip of video. This is important because he managed to capture tonal qualities the human eye cannot see! He did not use a camera obscura but he did use a lens/mirror technique. I suggest you watch "Tim's Vermeer" You will find a clip on RUclips.
@@kevinclarkson7036 I agree! His painting was so clean and clear. Not dark and haunting like those before him, more realistic.
Is the meaning of this conversation about a camera obscura to blame Johannes Vermeer ?
He was a great painter for more then 350 years ago, a period that live wasn’t easy at all !
Quite the opposite it is a celebration of innovation and lateral thinking to solve a problem.
You should read Steadman's extensive and exhaustive publication which answers many of your observations and misgivings. It is a masterly study. The camera obscura is merely another tool. There are aspects of Vermeer's work which are evidence of its use (ie., foreshortening, edge distortion). Most probably he would have edited, modified and ameliorated, but, not entirely eliminated the raw image. Vermeer had contact with Keppler, Huygens and several other important pioneer physicists.
It is never entirely possible to eliminate all optical aberrations and 'faults' which characterise the primitive single element lens. Vermeer through his association with Kepler and Huygens would have known of Kircher's Arts Magia Luce et Umbrae (1885) through information from either of the aforementioned. What separates Vermeer from his contemporaries is that if you look at the surviving examples of his work they are essentially explorative in intent, seemingly without any religious baggage.
NO TRICKS. TRUE GENIUS
All done with smoke and mirrors. All them great artists were frauds. -Right?
Vermeer's probable use of a primitive camera apparatus called, "camera obscura" is of small moment. and offers little or nothing towards revealing his "secret" of great perspective. And what about Vermeer's dreamy, hazy, warm afternoon or morning sun light?
Would the use of modern, digital colour photography diminish Edgar Degas' work?! -Specifically, his extraordinary reproduction of stage lighting and other "artificial" lighting effects from the 1890s? And what about Renoir and Monet's overwhelming lighting affects? Can those be attributed to a "trick", -simple or complex?
Perspective had long been well defined in terms of painting. -E.g., Leonardo precedes Vermeer by almost 200 years, yet no professional art historian and critic is going to propose that Vermeer conquered perspective BETTER than Leonardo.
Today, MOST portrait artists work from photographs. This is because of the sitter's time constraints. I have a good friend whom is a professional portrait painter and who uses small Polaroid photographs (5 x 7 or 3 x 5); but, this is only to insure that he captures the sitter's true personality, look and presence.
If you think Vermeer was "cheating", then, perhaps, you should consider the other physical constraints upon which Vermeer laboured. -E.g., Vermeer had no modern plumbing. -or ANY plumbing! Vermeer had to mix (i.e. MAKE) all of his paints, and thus had to learn a myriad of plant and animal species and their pigment offerings. There was NO modern lighting. You cannot paint by candle light, hence Vermeer's day started well before sunrise., and well before a farmer's day! Vermeer likely engaged a single helper/assistant, whom he would train, etc. But, this is nothing like Andy Warhol's "Factory" with 20 or 30 helpers p;us "groupies" and drugs:. Alas. Warhol was trying to prove that it is all malarkey, and that the high-priced world of modern art is a farce. And, Warhol may have been partly right. The trouble is that I and many other art critics find both sham and genius in his works.
-Back to the old guys.
Vermeer was painting wealthy and powerful people. These people did not have the time to sit for long periods. If Vermeer did not get it during the "cartoon" (or sketching phase), then, he would have soon found his business gone.
Yes, I realise it is fun to try to find the secret "trick" used by an artistic genius, but do not waste your time. If you could find the "trick" that Vermeer used, or Leonardo, Holbein, Raphael, Paul Klee, Degas, Manet, Klimt, Nicholas Hilliard (miniatures), etc., etc., you would not feel that "Ah-Ha" moment. Thank the Lord that no such "trick" exists for any great artistic genius. -Psst; Nicholas Hilliard used single hair paint brushes to do his famous miniatures,... and so did EVERY OTHER miniaturist painter.
How about musical genius? Is Sir Paul's bass playing a trick? Hmm. Yes. It is a trick that Sir Paul worked out throughout his childhood playing anything with strings. Sir Paul then went and deviously improved his playing and composition skills after spending 3 years playing night and day in Germany. -No sleep, no food, a lot of bennies and sweat. Then he spent ALL of his time trying to play 30 minute concerts where the PA systems were so poor that the band could not hear their voices...YET, they still sang on key and in tempo. And then , Sir Paul devilishly created more "tricks" by working in the studio night and day for another 5 years. At this point, Sir Paul was at the early midpoint of his career and had lots more "tricks" to create to fool us into thinking that Paul McCartney has exceptional talent. -Much like Vermeer? NOTE: Vermeer dies in his mid/early forties. He had severely painful gout, G.I problems (perhaps Crohns) no antibiotics, no pain killers, no steroids,-no nuthin'. Yet his works still thrill art lovers everywhere.
I dunno what Vermeer's "trick" was, but, sure was a good one; -eh?
Be thankful that you can perceive true genius and enjoy the work. Many people cannot distinguish between black velvet Elvis paintings and a Raphael. No one knew Raphael was going to do it better! There was no guide book.
The next time you look at a painting by an unknown artist, remember this and forget looking for the "tricks".
The trick is GENIUS. -If you like the work...it is probably good.
Yea, what he says.
I think you miss the point, using technology in ones art in not a TRICK as you seem to imply in your lengthy piece. It demonstrates an artist with an enquiring mind not afraid to use new techniques to get the image required. Vermeer lived in a time when there was no difference between artist and scientist. Indeed Leeuwenhoek inventor of the microscope was a member of the same Guild. So Vermeer would have been very conversant with optical matters. I suggest you watch "Tim's Vermeer" (You can find a clip on RUclips), for insight as to how Vermeer may have used lenses. Non of this diminishes his genius, in fact if anything it enhances his status as an innovator, though he was by no means the only artist of that period to use lenses, read "Secret Knowledge" by David Hockney.
What a parcel of venom! I am an artist and I am interested in technique and method. All artists - at least those who are any good, innovate or we would still be drawing with burnt sticks on a stone wall. All artists are in competition with their peers in order to survive they need an edge, Vermeer was no different. This is not CHEATING it is INNOVATION. The evidence is compelling, six of his canvas's, painted in the same room fit the size a reflection would give on the reverse wall exactly. The guild to which he belonged also had lensmakers. But clincher was his rendering of the "Virginals" musical instrument. When Jenison painted his version of a Vermeer he lamented to the camera that he had miss adjusted the mirror and the instrument had a slight curve to it. On examining the actual painting it had a curve too! This had never been noticed before. By the way Jenison did not "Copy" a Vermeer he created a room set to the original dimensions and painted that. The similartiy to a real Vermeer was stunning, particularly because Jenison is not a painter!
I think Vermeer don't used a camera obscura. He knews perspective rules for drawing.
It has nothing to do with drawing, the paintings in question were not drawn. Paint was applied directly to the canvas there are no lines underneath. Nor is the device a camera obscura.
Qamara=kamar-camera by Ibnu al Haytam
While Alhazen re-discovered the camera obscura, the name comes from lattin meaning dark chamber.
Idiots like you undermine history by trying to trump certain individuals, which leads to the discrediting of all their work.
ruclips.net/video/MmPTTFff44k/видео.html
Thanks for your information.. But why u call me idiot?? Peace n As salaam
I donot understand the problem, da Vinci used it, Carvaggio and Velásquez too and so much others. I think most people donot understand the job of painter in those days, they were not considered the "brilliant" artists we call them today. They were just artisans like carpinters, sculptors, bricklayers etc and were organised in guilds (sindicats) with strict rules and made paintings for a living, to feed the family so to say, and only when they received the order from some rich person, family, the church and so on. I repeat they were not the brilliant artists we think of them today nor they considered themselves like such. So in such a work environment and conditions it was normal that they used the tecnology that was disposible in those days, like I said they were artisans like carpinters and they had to make a good project for the person or the institution that paid them. So I think the discussion about a camara obscura or other tecnologies the painters could have used is absolutely useless. The thing is, is it a nice product, gives it me good feelings and emotions?
Exactly so!
So many academics with theories ...any talented kid can learn the "rules" of perspective , and to believe artists in the past couldn't simply DRAW WELL from an early age...nonsense...I had the ability before I was 20 to do the easy stuff (buildings , vanishing points , etc)..the human figure's another matter , but if you think the perspective implies a camera , take a CLOSE look at the floor at 1:45 ,no way that"s the result of a lens ; I'd guess he drew it out and painted it hurriedly , without checking , and figured "what the hell" if/when he noticed how clumsy it was.......I wouldn't argue either way if he used a camera obscura , but that has NOTHING TO DO with what he's about....people these days believe paintings done from photos are "realistic"...and good...I scorn the copying of photos AS ART;but of course , "art" is dead , and the stinking corpse has been rotting near 200 years.....but still , i paint , therefor i am....Please quit trying to analyze art....dissecting a Beethoven symphony DOES NOT increase understanding or enjoyment...unless you're one who cannot HEAR the music
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If you don't analyse art you do not learn, he worked in a competitive environment and as a practicing artist myself it is important to have an "edge" of you do not eat. Using technology is not cheating nor does it diminish his abilities, his range of work and subject matter proves that but the evidence of a lens/mirror use is compelling. No one suggested it was used exclusively it would have been used in conjunction with other techniques. This analysis is not about perspective or drawing it is about perception and tonal range, something which lifts Vermeer above many of his contemporaries.
This is a pretty thin explanation and it only explains one technique. However there is no linework under the paint in Vermeer's paintings. Neither is perspective what makes Vermeer great, it is the light and tone the "photographic" use of light. Any third rate 17th century artist could master one point perspective. Vermeer describes a tonal range that the human eye is not able to calculate so how did he do it? He certainly did use a lens/ mirror combination. Read "Vermeer's camera" In it the viewpoint of each painting was calculated using one point perspective and projected onto the back wall of Vermeer's studio. Of the 8 paintings done in that room the footprint on the wall matched the size of the 6 paintings. As to ton and colour watch this ruclips.net/video/94pCNUu6qFY/видео.html
The biggest problem with the use of a camera obscura is the sheer darkness of the image. Have you ever tried setting it up? Even an outdoor scene projected on an interior wall is not very bright. All but two if Vermeer's mature paintings were of interiors illuminated by diffuse outdoor light, which would have produced an image *orders of magnitude* dimmer than an outdoor
scene and not possible to have been projected to the scale of his paintings, except for the brightest parts. As for his ability to capture a tonal range not perceptible to the human eye, I see no evidence of that at all. Furthermore, the tonality of his paintings exceeds what is possible to see with a dark camera obscura image. There are contemporary realist painters quite capable of as wide a range of tonality as Vemeer who do not rely on anything other than their own eyes. One of the things that sets Vemeer apart from his contemporaries that no one seems to point out is his complete lack of stylization of forms, in particular, the human form. It makes a great deal of sense that at least one artist was able to be more objective in his perceptions and transfer them to canvas than his contemporaries. It is quite believable that Vermeer did study the images produced by a camera obscura, but to suggest that he relied on the device for an image to copy an image to the extent of the entire composition is very problematic.
@@danchaffee1261 I suggest you watch "Tim's Vermeer" the link is above. He use a lens/mirror apparatus (not arranged as camera obscura). It works in a reasonably lit room, I have tried it and since you look beyond the mirror to the canvas you match colour object shape and tone directly to what you see. Any error is immediately obvious and correctible, the end result is very accurate.
If the human eye is not abel to calculate it, he wouldn't have been able to do it even with a camera obscura. Come on.
@@robokill387 I didn't say he used a camera obscura, it was likely to be a lens mirror combination (watch "Tim's Vermeer"). As to my comment regarding the eye, the brain constantly recalculates tone and the Iris adjusts the light reaching the retina so we do not see the actual tone. However if you have the actual tone projected via a mirror in front of the canvas you can mix your paint to match what you see in the mirror. this made Vermeer's paintings "Cinematic" in colour and tone.
Yes well. Forming opinions based on basic ignorance of everything involved. Time for a cold case review and release of the wronged prisoner. Why don't critics put a pinhole through the middle of their foreheads.
vanishing point has nothing to do with detail and the way he captured light. Size is irrelevant, dumb point, the CO could easily be moved to change the size. What’s more, they don’t trace, the colors won’t jive. Artists use math( geometry), vanishing points, and a variety of other techniques that are technology, which is nothing more than practical application of knowledge. why should it matter if he used some form of CO to assist? Everything they learn as apprentices is designed to do exactly that….assist in the development of the painting. People are too hung up on some ethereal notion of inimitable genius, God given talent, which is just proof that they have no idea how geniuses actually create.
It’s painstakingly hard work and application of accumulated knowledge. The reality is that many people could use a technique like CO and make a picture indistinguishable from the masters to the untrained eye, but only the greats can instill that magical something that breaths life into it….making it great. That’s not about technique, it can’t be taught, so the net result is the same. Relax.
speak louder!