Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces - Hardcover

Steadman, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192159674 ISBN 13: 9780192159670

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Art historians have long speculated on how Vermeer achieved the uncanny mixture of detached precision, compositional repose, and perspective accuracy that have drawn many to describe his work as "photographic." Indeed, many wonder if Vermeer employed a camera obscura, a primitive form of camera, to enhance his realistic effects?
In Vermeer's Camera, Philip Steadman traces the development of the camera obscura--first described by Leonaro da Vinci--weighs the arguments that scholars have made for and against Vermeer's use of the camera, and offers a fascinating examination of the paintings themselves and what they alone can tell us of Vermeer's technique. Vermeer left no record of his method and indeed we know almost nothing of the man nor of how he worked. But by a close and illuminating study of the paintings Steadman concludes that Vermeer did use the camera obscura and shows how the inherent defects in this primitive device enabled Vermeer to achieve some remarkable effects--the slight blurring of image, the absence of sharp lines, the peculiar illusion not of closeness but of distance in the domestic scenes. Steadman argues that the use of the camera also explains some previously unexplainable qualities of Vermeer's art, such as the absence of conventional drawing, the pattern of underpainting in areas of pure tone, the pervasive feeling of reticence that suffuses his canvases, and the almost magical sense that Vermeer is painting not objects but light itself.
Drawing on a wealth of Vermeer research and displaying an extraordinary sensitivity to the subtleties of the work itself, Philip Steadman offers in Vermeer's Camera a fresh perspective on some of the most enchanting paintings ever created.

About this title

About the Author

Philip Steadman is Professor of Urban and Built Form Studies, University College London.

Reviews

A professor of "urban and built form studies" at London's University College, Steadman has worked for more than 20 years on the question of whether 17th-century Dutch genius Johannes Vermeer might have used an optic device called a camera obscura (literally, a "dark room") to help create his paintings. Lucidly and with admirable concision, he discusses how the camera obscura works and how it affected painting in nine short chapters such as "Who Taught Vermeer About Optics?" (probably Antony van Leeuwenhoek, a pioneer developer of the microscope and other optic tools) and "Reconstructing the Spaces in Vermeer's Paintings." Steadman shows how Vermeer's paintings reproduce focal distortions and details of perspective that a camera lens would show, but that do not ordinarily come clear to the naked eye, such as when two people sitting next to one another seem to have heads of dramatically different sizes. Steadman built miniature and full-size versions of the rooms shown in Vermeer's paintings (!) to see how the light would be captured and reflected had the painter used a camera obscura. The results yield no final answer to the question of Vermeer's techniques, but the book is a must-read for specialists in 17th-century Dutch art. Those with a more general interest in Vermeer will want to try the standard studies by Lawrence Gowing and A.K. Wheelock.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Art historians have long tried to fathom the techniques of the painter known as "The Sphinx of Delft." How did Vermeer achieve his remarkably precise perspective and detail? Why are certain areas in his paintings in soft focus? And, the key question, did he use a camera obscura? Steadman believes he did, not as a crutch or short cut, but as a tool for "protracted and attentive looking and analysis," the profound involvement with optics that makes his paintings so endlessly compelling. Steadman's convincing and energetically presented evidence includes a vigorous history of the camera obscura, a likely acquaintance between Vermeer and the lens expert and "pioneer of microscopy" Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a painting-by-painting analysis of significant architectural detail, outright awe over the fact that no line drawings underlie Vermeer's pristine paintings, and a thorough explication of the discoveries gleaned from Steadman's meticulous construction of small-sized and full-scale models of the room Vermeer painted most often. Exacting and enlightening, Steadman's technical inquiry enhances appreciation for an artist who "obscures as much as he reveals." Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0192159674
• ISBN 13: 9780192159670
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 222