As an traditionally educated artist I can assure you, that even with the help of Camera obscura or other "invention", the level of composition, precise, confident brushstrokes and craftsmanship of Vermeer are of the charts.
For the trained eye this is obvious.
If you don't have the knowledge of anatomy, composition and color you will just make unconvincing value transfer.
Yes, you can fool a lot of people, Youtube is full with "photo-realistic" amateur painters.
The idea that Vermeer is not properly trained and his paintings are just mechanical transfer done because of the technology is naive.
Technology in the hands of the master can create transcendental work. In the hands of the amateurs technology produces amusement for the masses.
In the documentary you can see the frustration of the process, when done only in transfer mode, without the needed knowledge and craftsmanship.
I laughed loud when they showed the closeups with chaotic brushstrokes and clear absence of mixing between the layers of paint.
Also as someone who photographed his whole live and worked as a DOP on film sets: even if you were a master at painting off a camera obscura what makes pictures work is not in the fingers, it is in the eyes that place that camaera obscura, that interpret the resulting composition etc.
A camera obscura might help to give you physically accurate angles and contrasts, but nobody will tell you which camera positions, angles, focal lengths, light situations and motifs will produce a stunning image.
It is a old hat I know, but try giving a shitty camera to a professional and a professional camera to an amateuer and the professional will still get you the better pictures. This is because a professional has a image in their head and knows how to get there with thw tools available while the amateur either has no image in their head (in which case the result will be a bit arbitrary) or they don't know how to get there (in which case it will look like a budget version of some other popular thing).
There are of course truly amazing amateuers that developed their own unique style and technique and I love that — but they wouldn't aim to be masters at what they are doing.
Whats interesting about this entire theory is that so many people involved in the art world have a vested interest in disproving/disparaging the idea. The closer art gets to paint by numbers, or an otherwise mechanical process, like a very large set of pixels, the less impressive, and therefore less valuable the art becomes. And who wants that?
But Tim's Vermeer makes extremely some compelling arguments about how certain features present in The Music Lesson would be impossible to recreate by eyesight alone, yet were trivial using the optical device.
Finally, if the painting is photorealistic, and the actual room was arranged like it is in the painting, isn't composition at least partially a property of the room itself?
- the room, subjects placement
- how they are lit
- camera position and angle
- focal length (strengthens or flattens the perspective effect depending on the room)
- other optical effects (depth of field, long time exposure, bokeh, flares, ...)
The last point probably wasn't relevant for Vermeer, but if he would have used a Camera Obscura, getting all the former points correct on a way that produces a compelling image is not easy.
I could also imagine that he used a camera obscura to study and understand perspective and light, but painted without it, simply because that seems a little bit more practical.
It is not impossible to recreate by eyesight, it requires more time. To accomplish this level of realism geometrically, you create a perfect perspective grid and place what you see in it.
To accomplish this level of tonal representation you patiently compare the values from the scene with values from your palette/canvas.
It is classical painting craftsmanship, lost in the collective mind in post-modernistic world without need of art culture and knowledge.
Using an optical device gives more time to concentrate on composition,execution and emotional message, that is the real point that becomes clear in the end of the movie.
Any technique, Tech you could say, is just a tool. In the right hands you can be a master. In the wrong hands any tool, no matter how amazing, will be disastrous.
For the trained eye this is obvious.
If you don't have the knowledge of anatomy, composition and color you will just make unconvincing value transfer.
Yes, you can fool a lot of people, Youtube is full with "photo-realistic" amateur painters.
The idea that Vermeer is not properly trained and his paintings are just mechanical transfer done because of the technology is naive.
Technology in the hands of the master can create transcendental work. In the hands of the amateurs technology produces amusement for the masses.
In the documentary you can see the frustration of the process, when done only in transfer mode, without the needed knowledge and craftsmanship.
I laughed loud when they showed the closeups with chaotic brushstrokes and clear absence of mixing between the layers of paint.