Johannes Vermeer was a famous painter for more than 350 years ago, the technics he used in that time was really remarkable ! He created beautifull paintings, which are beloved all over the world !
What people don't seem to understand about Jenison's demonstration is that the device *could* have been used ... although it did not have to be used in the exact *way* Jenison used it. The device does not mandate the method. Jenison used it for literally every stage of the painting, because he had no training; in the hands of a master, the device could be used to sketch dimensions or spot-check color values or to troubleshoot tricky proportions, with much of the work being done by eye and hand without the device.
Correct me if I'm wrong please are you saying that Vermeer painted upside down,? R Drew from the projector upside down then turned it right side up to paint? Question, if I work to give you a sketch that I have done could you tell was it my projector are only by hand? And again if I were to paint over it could you tell whether or not I use the projector? Of course I realize that most artists without a projector could not draw!
I do not know if this qualifies for what you seek, but there is a technique that involves pure numbers to learn music, dispensing with the (somewhat) cryptic musical notes as commonly written.
All the artist I know today uses projectors. Of course they don't admit it. LOL can one tell if a person has used a projector when drawing a subject on canvas to paint or did not?
Hockney was certainly not the first to tell that Vermeer used the camera obscura for his paintings. This theory (which has a lot of strong arguments for it) has been carried since the early 20th century when Vermeer was rediscovered. (check the 30' video on Vermeer in the video collection of art history called "Palettes" by Alain Jaubert : this is an excellent analysis for the lay persons like you and me. In fact the whole video collection - about 30 artists or more - is quite fascinating and excellent : it is in the collection of all art history departments). So, no, Hockney did NOT challenge conventional wisdom : he just used the work of previous art critics, scholars and experts… and why not ?
I think Hockney advocated that Vermeer used a Camera Lucinda didn't he? Or was that difference (Camera Lucinda vs Camera Obscura) a novel idea proposed by Tim?
@@JamieTransNyc I wouldn't tell right now (unless I do in depth research which, as you may guess, I have not time to do) but it is a fact that art historians have analyzed Vermeer's painting througouhly over generation and most came with the idea that he used an "artificial visualization" process ("lens" ? camera obscura ? Camera Lucinda ?…) to do his paintings : I learned this in art history courses in the late 60's early 70's. Now I don't mean that Hockney hasn't got a keen eye himself … but I feel he's just "sitting on the shoulder of giants" and that he shouldn't take all the credit to himself. As for the the mirror as being another type of "lens" proposed by Tim, as far as I know : yes it is a new idea, at least to me. Cheers.
I’m sorry but even with this device, painting like that is no easy feat. Tim is too humble but the man has an innate eye and a keen attention to detail.
а как же глазомер??? это же не разукрашка) нужно воспитывать свой глазомер а не искать как бы схитрить) так можно и на принтере распечатать и потом краской, а в чем искусство?
And so, Professor Steadman, do you or don't you believe Johannes Vermeer used Tim Jenison's device and method? Recall that it took Jenison 130 mind-numbing 8-hour days of tedium to execute his painting, and he says quite clearly that had he not been committed to the documentary project, with video cameras and famous producers overlooking him, he would have stopped painting long before completing his painting. I understand that several independent artists (under Tim's indirect guidance) have tried to use such a projector and all--yes ALL--found it an impediment to drawing; none said they would use it if not being paid to do so. None was significantly faster than Tim. (Only one independent user resigned him/herself to seeing the project through.) Moreover, for all the claims of how the optics was available in the Dutch Golden Age, optics isn't just about equipment, it is about KNOWLEDGE. Tim's optical system would have been the most complicated optical system on the planet. Let me stress: Tim's projector would have been the "Hubble Telescope" of that time. If you in any way disagree with that statement, you should be able to point to a documented optical system from anywhere in the world at that time that is more complicated than Tim's. I've never heard of such, despite extensive reading and asking numerous world experts. We're supposed to believe that Vermeer figured out a method that Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Ibn al-Haitham, and innumerable other optics experts could not. Really? All this after being trained and a member of the Guild of St. Luke (with numerous other "non-optical" artists). Then there is the technical evidence that argues against Tim: the well-documented pinprick holes precisely at the central vanishing point in several of Vermeer's paintings, which play no natural role in Tim's projector. (One is forced to "graft on" arbitrary and ad hoc reasons Vermeer would have also used the well-documented procedures for drawing perspective lines, and such.) Note too that Tim's projector is one-meter across and we know that some outside folk, such as dealers and of course patrons and model subjects, entered his studio. Not one person mentioned anything ever about a complicated and conspicuous optical device? Not one? Or Vermeer set up and took down and set up and took down the world's most complicated optical system, kept it aligned, if and when anyone from the outside happened to drop by? Really?
Vermeer DID take obscenely long time to paint, which supports the Camera Lucinda proposition. Additionally, the Camera Lucinda was well known in Holland at that time, and used by many artists.
@@JamieTransNyc Simply false. The camera lucida was invented by William Hyde Wollaston in 1806, 140 years after Vermeer executed "The music lesson." Note that Vermeer had 15 children, nine of whom reached childhood, was an art dealer, and lived at a time when even the simplest chores took time and energy. And Jenison's claim isn't Vermeer used a "camera lucinda' [sic] (it is "lucida," Latin for "light") but instead the world's most complicated TELESCOPE, using more types of optical elements (converging lens, concave mirror, front-surface plane mirror) than the celebrated telescopes invented by Isaac Newton, Laurent Cassegrain, and other optics experts AFTER Vermeer's painting.
@@davidstork5604 However David Hockney first began proposing that Vermeer used a camera Lucida in the 1960's I believe. Jenison used Hockney as his starting point for this endeavor. While it may be true that Wollaston invented a Camera Lucida in 1806, history is full of cases where inventions were made, lost and made again.
@@JamieTransNyc I have published extensively on this subject (as a simple Google search will prove). No, the earliest proposals that Vermeer might have been influenced by the camera obscura came from Lawrence Gowing in 1952, not Hockney. "History is full of cases..." is no argument, and can be dismissed out of hand. The case against Jenison is overwhelming. Find my email online, send me a note, and I'll send you a rigorous rebuttal, co-authored with true experts in the history of optics (from Harvard University).
@@davidstork5604 I don't know what there is to rebut. Jennison proved it could be done. Anything anyone might propose as vermeer's technique cannot be proven have been the actual technique without a time machine, all one may prove is that it is *possible*. Jennison proved that it was possible. "History is full of cases" is indeed an argument, and cannot be dismissed out of hand.
As a classically trained professional artist, I can tell you that the camera obscura idea is just another attempt by non-artists to explain something they don't understand. When I was a kid I received a camera obscura for my birthday. I had already been in art training for several years, yet trying to produce anything with that device was tedious, took forever, contain distortions and lacked any substance. What makes us artists isn't a magic thunderbolt called "talent" or a camera obscura. Talent means you're willing to do all the hard work, study and practice it takes to learn how to be one. The laws of optics, perspective, and light are what we study and use. The camera obscura is a trick that folks without talent and years of study use to cheat.
This whole context of "cheating" pertains only to those who care enough to burden themselves with it. With tools like these, there is no "cheating". Its a tool we made for a purpose, not to win at some game of "skill" or what have you.
That is because modern art does not meet the same needs as the art of the 17th c. Before photography there were no images unless you drew it. Draftsmen/women had to work quickly and they had no need for ideas or macho notions of talent. They needed their pay check and people treated them like photobooths-- not geniuses. There is evidence of drawing aids everywhere. You see them in da vinci, in durer, and everywhere in landscape painting. Realism can be achieved in many ways and only now that the modern art student doesn't need to copy 100 'views of the rhine' for their benefactor by tuesday would they even have time to train themselves to copy by eye alone. That is of course an oversimplification because we all know how to sight with our pencil!
Carrying the banner of a classically trained professional artist does not make one's words more believable :-D. The idea of of V. using optical aid was suggested by MANY classically trained professional artists (like you). painting is just painting. Who says it has to be a great work of art done by someone with talent? If there is a visual aid, but not use it? What is wrong with that?
As a professional artist and photographer I can guarantee that Vermeer painted using a camera obscura. He painted chromatic aberration. That only is created by lenses and not the human eye. Done. No further arguments needed. But as they discuss in the film he used it to create his vision. His creativity was in the design. It's not cheating. The final work is the art. Getting there any way you want is fine. I went from pencil and paint to digital.
So sorry. Are you try to tell us that Vermeer's models was standing upside down? Can you imagine their hair, their clothes? Same way, Michelangelo's models was hanging from the roof of Capela Sixtina!!! Unbelievable! Please believe to the abilities of all great masters. Finally to the power of all us. Everyone to some specific areas.
