Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth behind the Masterpieces [Paperback]

Philip Steadman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2002

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Philip Steadman's remarkable book Vermeer's Camera cracks an artistic enigma that has haunted art history for centuries. Over the years, artists and art historians have marveled at the extraordinary visual realism of the paintings of the 17th-century Dutch painter Jan Vermeer. The painter's spectacular View of Delft, painted around 1661, and the beautiful domestic interior The Music Lesson seem almost photographic in their incredible detail and precise perspective. Since the 19th century, experts have speculated that Vermeer used a camera obscura, an early precursor of the modern camera. However, conclusive proof was never discovered, until now. In Vermeer's Camera, Steadman proves that Vermeer did indeed use a camera obscura to complete his greatest canvases. Part art-historical study, part scientific argument, but mainly a fascinating detective story, Vermeer's Camera argues:

Vermeer had a camera obscura with a lens at the painting's viewpoint. He used this arrangement to project the scene onto the back wall of the room, which thus served as the camera's screen. He put paper on the wall and traced, perhaps even painted from the projected image. It is because Vermeer traced these images that they are the same size as the paintings themselves.

Steadman painstakingly develops his argument through careful study of the history of the camera obscura, an exploration of 17th-century optics, and a detailed study of the light, optics, perspective, and measurement of a series of Vermeer's paintings. He goes to remarkable lengths to reconstruct Vermeer's studio and its furnishings, down to the angle of the light from its windows. The science is complex, but always clearly explained. This is not an attempt to reveal Vermeer as an artistic "cheat." Steadman convincingly argues that "Vermeer's obsessions with light, tonal values, shadow, and colour, for the treatment of which his work is so admired, are very closely bound up with his study of the special qualities of optical images." Vermeer's Camera is a wonderful book that shows the ways in which, during the 17th century, art and science went hand in hand. It offers an enlarged, rather than reduced, perspective on Vermeer. --Jerry Brotton. Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

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.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; New edition edition (September 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192803026
• ISBN-13: 978-0192803023
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #638,603 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, scholarly study March 21, 2005

By wiredweird HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Did Vermeer use optical aids, like a camera obscura, in crafting his wonderful paintings: yes or no?

That is the question being asked here. This is a technical question, only, it adds or detracts nothing in Vermeer's ouvre and career either way. It's and interesting question though, and even an important one. What choices did Vermeer make in achieving greatness?

Steadman convincingly argues that Vermeer very likely used a camera obscura, in one form or another, in creating many of his paintings. This work starts with a thorough discussion of the inconclusive written records. Vermeer was certainly contemporary to people like van Leeuwenhoek, who pioneered microscopy, even lived in the same city at the same time. He had long exposure to trades where lenses were used regularly, and lived in a time when lenses were available commercially. All that is circumstantial and, unlike other authors, Steadman declines to read more into available facts than they said in the first place.

His real contribution is in his detailed analyses of Vermeer's paintings and their geometries, and in actual reconstructions of the rooms Vermeer portrayed and tools he might have used. This is the scientific method at work: present a falsifiable hypothesis, and create an experiment that confirms or denies it. "Is shadow in 'The Music Lesson' a credible, literal rendering of an actual scene?" His experiments from the late 80s, rebuilding rooms that match Vermeer's says "Yes." This is a delightful contrast to armchair guesswork by others, such as Wheelock, who never really checked but thought the shadows looked false.

This is a worthwhile historical and technical achievement, partially funded by the BBC for a TV special in 1989. It also stands in clear contrast to Hockney's later work on much the same question, "Secret Knowledge." Hockney asked, as an artist, do these tools give me the experience captured in the old masters' art? His answer, achieved by personal immersion, was also "Yes." I respect Steadman's rigor as a historian and experimentalist, but this work comes off a bit dry compared to Hockney's first-person report.

It's an interesting book on an artist about whom maddeningly little is known. It's thorough, and gives future art historians a very high bar to clear. If not for the hands-on liveliness of Hockney's book, I might have ranked this one even higher.

//wiredweird

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Detective Story for Vermeer Lovers May 24, 2004

By Danno VINE™ VOICE

This treasure is actually a mystery novel in the guise of an art book! Steadman cleverly examines the long-held debate over Vermeer's alleged use of camera-like inventions to help create his masterworks. He does so by constructing models of the rooms, examining long-overlooked clues and engaging in some very pragmatic thinking. At times Steadman almost comes across as art history's answer to Lt. Colombo, which is a compliment. This is a very readable and enjoyable book for any art lover who also loves a good mystery, brain teasers, and practical application of optics. My only quibble is that additional illustrations and plates would have helped Steadman make his point better.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Well researched and tolerably convincing June 29, 2006

By David Manthey

This is a very well researched book. The author has taken great pains to measure and analyze Vermeer's paintings, finding a striking feature that many of them, when back-projected through the perspective view point at the size of the painting, imply a consistent location of a back wall to the common room used in the pictures. The author asserts that the only reasonable explanation for this coincidence is that Vermeer used a camera obscura for at least some of the layout of his paintings.

This comes off as very plausible, though the analysis is limited to paintings that include a tiled floor. It would have been interesting to see this work extended through photogrammetry of objects of known sizes in the paintings (chairs, musical instruments, etc) and applied to more of the paintings.

I think the only real failing in the argument is that Vermeer could have could have had the skill to paint perspective of this quality, and therefore not needed the aid of a camera. As pointed out in the text, he was not bound to perfect accuracy; there are some deviations.