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

Steadman, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192803026 ISBN 13: 9780192803023

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2002

Synopsis

Over 100 years of speculation and controversy surround claims that the great seventeenth-century Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer, used the camera obscura to create some of the most famous images in Western art.

This intellectual detective story starts by exploring Vermeer's possible knowledge of seventeenth-century optical science, and outlines the history of this early version of the photographic camera, which projected an accurate image for artists to trace. However, it is Steadman's meticulous reconstruction of the artist's studio, complete with a camera obscura, which provides exciting new evidence to support the view that Vermeer did indeed use the camera.

These findings do not challenge Vermeer's genius but show how, like many artists, he experimented with new technology to develop his style and choice of subject matter. The combination of detailed research and a wide range of contemporary illustrations offers a fascinating glimpse into a time of great scientific and cultural innovation and achievement in Europe.

About this title

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 marvelled at the extraordinary visual realism of the paintings of the 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes 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, Philip Steadman conclusively 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 that 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. Nor is this 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

Review

"Vermeer's Camera offers a fresh perspective on some of the most exceptional paintings ever created."--Gadfly
"Did the rise of photography prepare the way for Vermeer's rediscovery after two centuries of neglect? More than that, Steadman argues in his new book, 'Vermeer's Camera, ' Vermeer may have paved the way for photography itself by his use of a camera obscura. Most art historians now believe that
Vermeer used this optical convenience, but no one has taken more trouble to prove it than Steadman."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Of the three new approaches to the painter, Philip Steadman's Vermeer's Camera is the most vivid and impressive.... In its chief thesis, that Vermeer used an optical device, a camera obscura, to make his paintings, it may even be dead wrong. Yet reading about how Vermeer might have used such an aid
presents, at least in Steadman's telling, an experience that is closer to how we absorb the painter's intense, spooky, and perfectionistic work than Liedtke's or Bailey's accounts. It's only in Steadman's presentation that I felt I came close to Vermeer himself."--Sanford Schwartz, The New York
Review of Books
"This geometer and architect will add a new dimension to the literature on Vermeer."--Times Literary Supplement
"Vermeer's Camera offers a fresh perspective on some of the most exceptional paintings ever created."--Gadfly
"Did the rise of photography prepare the way for Vermeer's rediscovery after two centuries of neglect? More than that, Steadman argues in his new book, 'Vermeer's Camera, ' Vermeer may have paved the way for photography itself by his use of a camera obscura. Most art historians now believe that
Vermeer used this optical convenience, but no one has taken more trouble to prove it than Steadman."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Of the three new approaches to the painter, Philip Steadman's Vermeer's Camera is the most vivid and impressive.... In its chief thesis, that Vermeer used an optical device, a camera obscura, to make his paintings, it may even be dead wrong. Yet reading about how Vermeer might have used such an aid
presents, at least in Steadman's telling, an experience that is closer to how we absorb the painter's intense, spooky, and perfectionistic work than Liedtke's or Bailey's accounts. It's only in Steadman's presentation that I felt I came close to Vermeer himself."--Sanford Schwartz, The New York
Review of Books
"This geometer and architect will add a new dimension to the literature on Vermeer."--Times Literary Supplement
"Vermeer's Camera offers a fresh perspective on some of the most exceptional paintings ever created."--Gadfly
"Did the rise of photography prepare the way for Vermeer's rediscovery after two centuries of neglect? More than that, Steadman argues in his new book, 'Vermeer's Camera, ' Vermeer may have paved the way for photography itself by his use of a camera obscura. Most art historians now believe that Vermeer used this optical convenience, but no one has taken more trouble to prove it than Steadman."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Of the three new approaches to the painter, Philip Steadman's Vermeer's Camera is the most vivid and impressive.... In its chief thesis, that Vermeer used an optical device, a camera obscura, to make his paintings, it may even be dead wrong. Yet reading about how Vermeer might have used such an aid presents, at least in Steadman's telling, an experience that is closer to how we absorb the painter's intense, spooky, and perfectionistic work than Liedtke's or Bailey's accounts. It's only in Steadman's presentation that I felt I came close to Vermeer himself."--Sanford Schwartz, The New York Review of Books
"This geometer and architect will add a new dimension to the literature on Vermeer."--Times Literary Supplement
"Vermeer's Camera offers a fresh perspective on some of the most exceptional paintings ever created."--Gadfly

"Did the rise of photography prepare the way for Vermeer's rediscovery after two centuries of neglect? More than that, Steadman argues in his new book, 'Vermeer's Camera, ' Vermeer may have paved the way for photography itself by his use of a camera obscura. Most art historians now believe that Vermeer used this optical convenience, but no one has taken more trouble to prove it than Steadman."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Of the three new approaches to the painter, Philip Steadman's Vermeer's Camera is the most vivid and impressive.... In its chief thesis, that Vermeer used an optical device, a camera obscura, to make his paintings, it may even be dead wrong. Yet reading about how Vermeer might have used such an aid presents, at least in Steadman's telling, an experience that is closer to how we absorb the painter's intense, spooky, and perfectionistic work than Liedtke's or Bailey's accounts. It's only in Steadman's presentation that I felt I came close to Vermeer himself."--Sanford Schwartz, The New York Review of Books

"This geometer and architect will add a new dimension to the literature on Vermeer."--Times Literary Supplement

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0192803026
• ISBN 13: 9780192803023
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 222